


Less of a Hobby, More of a Fixation

by whitedatura



Category: The Social Network RPF
Genre: Drunk Texting, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Get Together, Kittens, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-06
Updated: 2011-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:41:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitedatura/pseuds/whitedatura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Andrew accidentally names Jesse's foster kitten, Jesse second guesses himself a lot, and Emma thinks someone needs to explain phone sex to Jesse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Less of a Hobby, More of a Fixation

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** This is all very fictional. Especially Rupert the imaginary goldfish.  
>  **Timeline:** Post-Awards season. Timeline is intentionally vague and more than a little fudged since I started writing before the Spider-Man filming actually moved to NYC. A few real events have been semi-incorporated (premiere of _Rio_ , Spider-Man filming, _Predisposed_ , Woody Allen movie), but any/all detail about them has been completely made up.  
>  **Note:** Everything is gay and nothing hurts. (The girlfriends do not exist in this universe.)

"She is the bossiest half-grown cat I've ever had around," Jesse tells Andrew over the phone while watching his six-month-old foster kitten terrorize his twelve-year-old permanent cat, Fyodor. There are poofy tails and terrible claw-catching-on-carpet noises as they catapult around the apartment. He's waiting for something to break.

"Sounds like Emma," Andrew mutters in return, sounding sullen. "You should name her Emma and give her a bath and take pictures of her sopping wet so I can feel some sort of marginal control over my life again."

"What? Andrew -- Andrew. That's kind of a weird thing to say, and now I'm thinking of the cat as Emma. She was just 'the kitten' before, now she has a name in my head and I won't be able to give her up, so I have three cats now. That's crossing some sort of line, I'm going to be alone forever," Jesse sighs and chews on his bottom lip as his other (now _third_ ) permanent cat, Ophelia, joins the crazy tearing around the room race that's going on by knocking over a lamp. It doesn't break, which is surprising.

"No you won't. And, um, I'm sorry? But, Jesse, if she tells me to nut up or shut up one more time I won't be held responsible for my actions and they can find a new Gwen Stacy."

"Maybe you should nut up then," Jesse says absently while righting the lamp. There is a long silence in which Jesse's brain catches up with his mouth. In a fit of anxiety, Jesse pulls the phone away from his ear to see if Andrew hung up on him, but they're still connected. "Sorry, I didn't mean -- I don't even know what she's being bossy about. Sorry," he apologizes hastily. And now he feels weird and awkward about the whole conversation.

"It's fine," Andrew says quickly, and then changes the subject to how much he wants to eat fast food again.

***

It's 11PM and Emma-cat is literally climbing the walls -- by way of the curtains. This is Andrew's fault, because she wouldn't still _be_ in his apartment if Andrew hadn't named her, let alone be scaling the curtains.

The only revenge Jesse can think of with Andrew currently across the country is snapping a picture of the kitten half hanging from the curtain rod and sending it to Emma (the person) with the text: _This is Emma-cat. Andrew named her that because she is bossy. And hyperactive. Thought you should know._

Emma texts him back almost immediately. _Eisenberg!!! i am neither of those things!! emmacat is cute tho._

 _Take it up with Andrew, I don't think you're bossy._ Jesse sends back.

A few seconds later he gets a text from Andrew. _Why did you do this to me i think she might kill me :(((_

It takes him a few minutes to respond since he is busy trying to unhook Emma-cat's claws from the weave of the curtains which are now mostly ruined. _I have to get another therapist to cope with being alone forever. No one to blame but yourself._

_But i still love you!!!! :D I am coming to see you when we are in nyc so i can meet emma. The cat. Not the crazy person. But she will be there too._

Jesse can't help the smile that crosses his face at the thought of Andrew visiting. It's much easier to tease him in person, after all. Emma had been trying to convince Jesse to come out to LA to visit the Spider-Man set, but -- but... Andrew is there, and what if Andrew doesn't want to see Jesse or is just polite about it because they haven't seen each other since the Oscars? It is distressingly easy to be paranoid about Andrew not wanting to be his friend anymore when he is thousands of miles away, even though they talk or text a couple times a week and Andrew just clearly stated his intention of seeing Jesse sometime in the near future.

 _Don't hurt him too much._ Jesse sends to Emma so he can put off answering Andrew's text for another few seconds.

_if he opens his door i wont. i just need to see the fear in those bambi eyes._

Because he's starting to feel guilty about siccing Emma on him, he texts Andrew: _She says to open the door and she won't hurt you. I have to try to trim Emma-cat's claws now so good luck._

Jesse goes to find the special cat nail clippers and then spends ten minutes trying to find Emma-cat, who has mysteriously vanished. Fyodor watches from the top of the kitchen cabinets. He doesn't get any more texts before he goes to bed so he figures that Emma either killed Andrew or they'd decided to be each other's best friend and shun Jesse and his billion cats.

***

A few weeks later Jesse has been to Rio de Janeiro and back, which is weird to think about when it's just him and three cats alone in his apartment. He's reading a book on the couch with Ophelia in his lap and Emma-cat trying to be a parrot by balancing on his shoulder. Balancing being a subjective term, since it seemed to involve a lot of claws, and she's too big to actually fit on his shoulder. Fyodor is on top of the cabinets again, where he seems to spend most of his time since he can see the kitten coming from a mile away up there. Jesse worries every time he hears the thump-bang-thump that means Fyodor is jumping down (the bang is him landing on the stovetop) since he's getting up there in cat years and isn't as agile as he used to be.

There's a knock on his door which sends Ophelia sprinting under the coffee table (after she kicks him in the crotch to vault off his lap) because she thinks whatever is on the other side of the door is going to eat her. The kitten doesn't even register the new noise. Her claws dig into his hoodie a little further when he gets up, her front paws pulling at the fabric uncomfortably as they slide down his chest in her effort to retain her perch. She meows loudly in protest when he's almost to the door and he can hear someone on the other side start to laugh.

The door swings open to reveal Andrew standing there, beaming. He grins even wider when he sees the kitten still nominally attached to Jesse. "Hi," he says brightly. "Your doorman is susceptible to bribes from Spider-Man, just so you know."

"I don't think that will be much of a safety issue," Jesse replies, staring, then remembers he should probably invite Andrew inside instead of leaving him standing there in the hallway looking stupidly happy. And also before Emma-cat gets any ideas about launching herself off his shoulder to explore the great unknown that is the corridor.

Then, of course, Jesse realizes his apartment has no fewer than five empty cardboard boxes of varying sizes scattered around the floor along with innumerable bits of chewed-off box everywhere as well as the mess Emma-cat had made earlier by repeatedly flipping over the dry food bowl, all of which he'd told himself he'd get around to cleaning up later, but later is now and Andrew is _there_ and his apartment is hopelessly cat-ified and there isn't any way of hiding that now.

"Um, you're here." Smooth, he tells himself. Very smooth.

"Yes, I am. For two weeks. Well, not _here_ here, but here in this city. Which you also occupy." Andrew's smile fades a little, possibly because he is still standing in the hallway and Jesse is mostly just staring at him and wondering how he can speed clean his apartment without Andrew noticing. Andrew keeps talking. "I probably should have told you I was coming so you would not be doing that thing in your head where you think everything in life has suddenly turned awful, but then it wouldn't have been a surprise. Since I know you love those so much."

Jesse is definitely doing that in his head.

"So. Hello again. I missed you." Andrew's head tilts slightly to one side. "Your kitten is going to dash off," he adds as an afterthought.

"Ugh," says Jesse, and somehow manages to catch Emma-cat as she springs off of him. She starts squirming immediately. "Come in. If you contract toxoplasmosis don't say I didn't warn you."

Despite the threat to his health, Andrew steps inside and closes the door behind himself, so Jesse drops the wriggling ball of fur that's trying to take his hand off. She hits the ground and darts away to dive into a Coke box on the floor just to draw attention to it to spite him. There is something that sounds suspiciously like a snicker from Andrew's direction.

Without putting too much thought into it, Jesse leans forward until his forehead is resting against Andrew's shoulder so he doesn't have to look him in the eye. _Bambi eyes_ , Jesse's brain supplies from Emma's last text. "Hi," he finally says to Andrew's shoes. "I have three cats now, which is your fault, so try not to judge me too much. Two cats is okay, because they're friends, right? But three is --"

"Crossing a line, I know," Andrew finishes for him. His hand comes up to squeeze Jesse's shoulder. "I think you're overdramatizing it a bit."

"Oh, well, if you're not going to judge me for three cats, you probably will for the cat furniture and lack of TV. Just -- don't say anything for a minute."

Andrew -- either because he is nice and polite and _Andrew_ or because he knows Jesse freakishly well -- stands there silently, wrapping an arm around Jesse's shoulders, and gives him the time he needs to come around to being sort of ridiculously pleased that Andrew is there. Jesse straightens up and smiles, getting another wide, happy grin in return.

"Better?" Andrew asks.

"Yeah. I just condensed my whole worry-about-everything process into under a minute."

"That's very considerate."

"Not especially. My motives are purely selfish since you're probably going to be really busy the whole time you're in New York." He shuffles around a little and manages to steer Andrew in the direction of the couch without dislodging the arm still hooked around him. "Do you want a drink or something?"

"I'm fine." Andrew exerts a gentle pressure on Jesse's arm as he tries to depart for the kitchen. "Come sit with me."

They settle onto the couch and Andrew doesn't even pretend like his end goal wasn't to press himself up against Jesse -- he just does it without shame and slouches down to better fit himself against Jesse's side. "Do you know what time I was supposed to get up this morning?" he mumbles into Jesse's shoulder. "Three," he continues without waiting for a response. "Do you know what time I _actually_ woke up?"

"No?" Jesse hazards.

"Emma," Andrew starts -- Jesse practically has to bite his tongue to not say something about Emma not being a time -- "Emma came to my room at two to boss me around a bit more before we came out here, because she is trying to ruin my life."

"She never really struck me as a life ruiner. It's not -- oh god, it's not because of the kitten thing, is it? I'm so sorry --"

"Noooo, Jess, no. It's not your fault." Andrew pulls back a little so he can look at Jesse instead of rubbing his head on Jesse like a particularly large housecat. (The thought that having four cats isn't that much worse than three flits across Jesse's mind so quickly he's not sure it existed.) "Well. It's partly your fault since I started talking to her a lot because she's your friend which made me think she must be pretty great. But not because of the kitten."

"It's very nice of you to not blame me and then blame me again before you stop talking," Jesse says, tipping his head a little to the side to study Andrew's expression from a new angle. Andrew just smiles at him, a tired curl of lips. "Did she do that thing to you -- the silent stare-y thing and then you say stuff you don't mean to say and then she thinks she needs to do something about it?"

Andrew nods, his cheek now rubbing against Jesse's arm stretched out along the back of the couch. "Yes. That is _exactly_ what she did. Why didn't you warn me?"

Jesse really wants to ask what Andrew had told Emma, but that's not the sort of thing that he lets himself verbalize. If Andrew wants to tell him, he will. "I didn't realize it merited a warning," he says instead of asking anything. "I mean, with the Zombieland thing, it was fun, right, and a lot of work, but I thought people were going to think I was a total hack for doing a movie like that even though the characters were great -- I mean, there were zombies -- and she made me tell her that and then she made me feel better about it and everything worked out okay, you know? Even though I completely insulted her by insinuating she was a hack for being in the movie too she didn't take it like that. She just... helped. Also I like her because she's shorter than me."

It is apparently possible for Andrew's eyes to get even bigger. "That... was a lot of words."

"Thanks, I didn't notice the word vomit."

He's momentarily spared from the topic by the arrival of Fyodor, who has abandoned his cabinet watchpost in favor of demanding chin scritches by stepping on Jesse's crotch with his front paws and staring balefully up at him. Giving in is usually the only option. Instead he peers down at the cat as Andrew reaches over to comply. It puts Andrew's hand not very far away from said stepped-on crotch, which Jesse tries very hard not to think about. Fyodor starts purring loudly.

Since the kitten can't stand not being the center of attention (even though she was perfectly happy gnawing on a box until Fyodor made his move) she jumps up onto the couch and shoves her head under Fyodor's chin. There are way too many things in Jesse's lap now. The only saving grace is that there's no way Ophelia is going to end up there too since she's undoubtedly petrified of the new person who has invaded the apartment. Jesse uses the arm that Andrew isn't leaning on to shove Emma-cat away, his hand brushing Andrew's. Emma-cat, of course, jumps up again a few seconds later and tries the same thing.

"She is very pushy, I stand by my naming choice. Which is this one?" Andrew laughs, indicating Fyodor, who has ascended to a state of feline nirvana that involves a lot of loud purring, and Jesse is briefly thankful that Fyodor doesn't knead things nearly as much as the other two do when he's happy.

"His name is Fyodor, the shelter thought he was some sort of Russian Blue mix. Fyodor like Dostoevsky or Tyutchev or Tsar Fyodor II Borisovich Godunov. Well, there were three tsars named Fyodor, but I think the second one was the most interesting."

"I don't know, I always thought the third one was the best," Andrew teases with a sly smile and Jesse rolls his eyes. Fyodor, who knows a sucker when he sees one, rearranges himself to lay partially on Jesse's lap with his front half draped over Andrew's adjacent leg for easier petting access. The kitten wedges herself in between Jesse's stomach and Fyodor's side because she is very good at being an obnoxious little sister.

"Are you making the third cat up just to make me feel badly, or is it invisible or something?" Andrew inquires, glancing at Jesse through lowered lashes, smile still in place.

Jesse uses a finger to rub the bridge of Emma-cat's nose. "Ophelia only wishes she was invisible -- you'll probably never see her, she hid the second you knocked on the door. She's kind of, um, shy, but she does exist enough to condemn me to a life of solitude." The kitten starts to purr, like the thought of Jesse being alone forever is perfectly okay with her. "Thanks," he tells her with a frown. What he doesn't -- can't -- tell Andrew is that he identifies entirely too much with Ophelia, who is afraid of her own shadow most days. Hiding under the bed seems altogether too appealing sometimes.

"That's too bad," Andrew says. "I wanted to meet all of them. D'you know Emma has your number in her phone saved as 'Freight Train'?" He's looking up at Jesse yet again, the carefully cultivated expression of innocence on his face at war with the smirk on his lips.

"I did not know that. That's embarrassing." Several uncharitable thoughts about Emma cross his mind. (Never mind the fact that she'd talked him through his first freak out over doing SNL since she'd done it a few months before he had and he trusted her judgment.) "Thanks for telling me that so I can have a flashback panic attack about hosting SNL."

"What are you talking about? You were great." They don't need to have this talk again, since they'd already had it approximately two hours after the episode aired and Jesse had called Andrew on the verge of hyperventilating over meeting (and briefly hanging out with) the real Mark Zuckerberg. "We already had this conversation, though," Andrew says, an eerie echo of Jesse's mental monologue.

"You brought it up," Jesse mutters, narrowing his eyes at Andrew's faux innocent face.

"I was just trying to segue back to Emma in a creative fashion," Andrew admits. "I feel I've misrepresented my feelings toward her and I don't want you to think I don't like her because I _do_ like her, I, uh, just want her to stop trying to fix the thing she thinks needs fixing. Because it doesn't need to be fixed."

Is Andrew _trying_ to make it ridiculously hard to not ask what the hell he's talking about? Jesse has limits, when it comes to Andrew. Somewhere. They are currently undiscovered. "Could you say fix a few more times so it doesn't sound like a real word anymore?"

"I'm already at that point. Anyway, how do you get her to stop... doing things?"

"Uh. You don't, you can't." Which is precisely why he has been very careful to not mention his embarrassingly large crush on Andrew to her. If he never admits it out loud, it's not true, right?

"Fantastic."

"You're doomed," Jesse agrees with a small smile.

"You know what I like about you? I mean, besides everything," Andrew barrels on before Jesse can get a word in edgewise, "it's your positive attitude."

"I _am_ a notoriously upbeat person."

Andrew just laughs. A bird chirps outside on the tiny balcony and Emma-cat is off like a shot to fling herself at the sliding patio door, which results in Andrew laughing harder. "What the fuck?" he asks between undignified giggles.

"Normal behavior," Jesse dismisses it with a wave of his hand as she jumps and paws frantically at the glass. Fyodor gets up from their laps and saunters away, disturbed by all the movement. They sit there without speaking for a few minutes, watching Emma-cat futilely attempt to hurl herself through the door. It's comfortable. Relaxing. Easy.

Eventually they get around to discussing Andrew's New York filming schedule. Unsurprisingly, he's only supposed to have one real day off the whole time he's in the city. Jesse is pretty sure he is expected to be in LA that day, but after Andrew leaves for his hotel a few hours later he texts his agent and apologetically requests that the trip be shuffled around so he does interviews after the LA _Rio_ premiere instead of before. It's a good thing, he reflects, that he doesn't usually ask for much of anything.

***

Except something goes wrong and of course the Spider-Man filming gets pushed around to its contingency schedule, so he's in LA anyway when Andrew has his singular day off. The universe hates him. Maybe Jesse deserves it for trying to pull strings to make it happen. It's a little depressing that he has to settle for a phone call instead, despite the fact that the phone call ends up being two hours long and Jesse thinks one of them might have skipped a meal to keep talking.

"Has Emma talked you into playing the interview game yet?" Jesse asks Andrew after they've spent half an hour discussing all the planned publicity for Spider-Man. Jesse is more than a little afraid Andrew is going to end up half dead from exhaustion.

"No, there's a game? Is this something we could've done when we got asked several hundred times if we used Facebook?" There's still an easily perceptible fondness in Andrew's voice when he talks about the time they'd spent together answering silly questions.

"Um, yes, I guess we could have. I don't know if I should ruin it for when Emma gets you to do it, though. Well, now I'm building it up and you're going to think it's some great thing, but it's not, really, just sort of funny."

"Hmm, you should probably just tell me then or I'm going to feel left out and disappointed. I'll be very sad and excluded and other things that will make you feel guilty. Er, more guilty than usual." And ugh, it definitely says something that Jesse can easily picture the almost-pouting expression that is sure to be on Andrew's face when he sounds like that.

He sighs and then quickly explains how he and Emma had taken turns giving each other a word to work into their responses when being interviewed. Andrew cackles as Jesse relates his anecdote on having to use the word "stiffy" in an answer. "You might want to ban all erection-related euphemisms," Jesse adds thoughtfully, "since I'm sure that will just lead to scandalous remarks about shooting web stuff."

There's a loud clatter and the faint sound of Andrew swearing and laughing at the same time. "Shit, sorry -- still there?"

"I know that was a terrible joke, but I don't think it deserved you throwing your phone across the room," Jesse says slyly.

"I didn't throw it, you arse, I dropped it," Andrew is trying to talk and laugh simultaneously. "I never expect you to say things like that and then you do and it nearly kills me."

"Sorry," Jesse apologizes and for once doesn't mean it at all. "Anyway. Are there any Spider-Man questions you're already sick of?"

"Um. I'm not sure. Probably if I've read the comics, or if it's too soon for a reboot, like I'm going to say 'yes it is, please take my job away.' Why, what about you? Have they been asking you if you've been a bird before?" Andrew snickers.

"I did get asked that, actually."

"And then you made fun of the reporter without her picking up on it, I'm sure."

(During the promotional period for _The Social Network_ , Andrew, Armie, and Justin had had a running bet going on the number of reporters Jesse could get to believe weird things without them realizing Jesse was kind of fucking with them. They'd refused to tell Jesse the terms of the bet since Justin and Armie had been convinced he'd try to throw the contest in Andrew's favor. He probably would have, only partially because Andrew would've split the winnings with him.)

"Maybe. But that question wasn't so bad. I'm getting especially tired of 'where's your date?' Like, I'm so tired of it I'm considering carrying a blow up doll around with me from now on. I'd give it a name, too. Her? It?"

"Poor Jesse, going to Rio for a premiere with no bikini-clad Brazilian woman on your arm. That would have gone over well for an animated children's movie. And no waitress-slash-starlet for the LA premiere. You should explain to them very seriously that you have three cats now and an obligation to the world to never date again."

"My life is pain and misery, obviously," he replies flatly.

"I'd offer to be your date, but I don't remember what having free time is like anymore." There is a gusty sigh that is entirely too loud over the phone, which makes Jesse wince at the volume as much as the words.

"Wow, thanks, a pity date offer you can't even follow up on, that really means a lot to me." It sort of does, but he's careful to keep his tone neutral.

Andrew laughs for a long time before gasping out, "Oh, Jess, never change."

Jesse likes to hear Andrew say that, even if it goes against several years of therapy.

***

 _When r u getting back? garfield is sadfacing so much its depressing me. he looks like some1 told him his childhood pet died._ Emma texts him on his last day in LA when he's in between interviews about playing a bird and a coerced bank robber.

Jesse sends back, _Oh no, did Rupert die?_

_O shit does he rly have a childhood pet?_

He doesn't have time to respond before his next interview, and when he's able to look at his phone again he has five new text messages, four from Emma and one from Andrew. Emma's are just repeated inquiries about the alleged state of Andrew's fictitious pet; Andrew's just says, _Did you break emma?_

Jesse grins down at his phone as he types back, _Tell her Rupert is okay and I'll be back in NY late tonight._

_Who is rupert?? Ok that fixed her. Thanks crazy person #2. :D_

***

Telling Emma he'd be back in the city was evidently a bad idea, as proven by the fact he'd only gotten four hours of sleep before she appeared on his doorstep. The knocking probably wouldn't have woken him if not for Ophelia digging her claws in as she scrambled across his chest in her haste to hide under the bed.

"How do you know where I live?" is the first thing out of his mouth when he opens the door to find Emma standing there looking flawlessly put together. And blonde. Very blonde. He's too tired to care about all the boxes scattered around, Emma can just deal with it. He uses his foot to hold Emma-cat back from the entryway so her namesake can come in.

"I just looked through Garfield's stuff until I found an address with a heart drawn around it," she answers with a straight face, shoving a paper bag from a nearby deli into his hands before crouching down to pet the kitten.

"Oh, thanks," he responds automatically. Egg whites and spinach on an English muffin, at least she'd remembered he was a vegetarian. Emma-cat is instantly more interested in a potential source of people-food than in being cute for a new person and goes up on her hind legs to put her front paws against his knee.

"What, you're just going to ignore the heart thing?" Emma asks, straightening up after being shunned by the kitten.

"Yes?" he tries, sitting down at the kitchen table and shoving the kitten back to the floor a second later. There is a familiar thump-bang-thump as Fyodor gets off the cabinets to come investigate, albeit in a slightly more polite manner than Emma-cat. "Avoidance is a key component of my mental stability."

Emma takes the chair opposite his and gestures for him to eat. "There wasn't actually a heart since it was in his phone, but it was there in spirit."

He has to choke down a bite before he can say, "Do I want to know where you're going with this? And -- shouldn't you be working?"

The way she rolls her eyes says volumes about her opinion on the general density of the male gender. In lieu of answering, she announces, "You're coming with me to the set today, so after you're done eating I expect you to get ready to go asap, mkay?"

He blames his sleep deprivation for his lack of motivation to question Emma about why she is suddenly in charge of his life. He is beginning to see why Andrew thinks she is bossy. There is a lunch, he thinks, that he is supposed to go to today. After he gets out of the shower he calls his agent to figure out what it was for and instead finds out it's been canceled, which is suspiciously convenient. He wonders if this is his karmic reward for being stuck in LA on Andrew's day off. Reward being a relative term, since Emma marches him out the door immediately after he finishes feeding his cats and shoves him into a car with a driver who has apparently been waiting for them.

They've been sitting in traffic for a couple minutes before Emma breaks the silence. "He doesn't really have a pet named Rupert, does he," she states, pointedly not making it a question.

"Nope." He leans his head against the window and closes his eyes, sort of hoping he'll wake up and being in a car with Emma en route to the set of a movie he isn't in will all be a dream.

"Oh come on, Eisenberg. Sometimes I can barely tell when you're joking regularly, let alone over a text."

"That's pretty normal," Jesse sighs, opening his eyes to glance sidelong at Emma. "I'm sorry I have to ask this, but why am I coming with you? Won't someone mind?"

"I'm cheering Andrew up. I don't think you understand how pathetic his sad little face can get. No one will care, don't act like you don't go out of your way to try to get people to forget you exist on a daily basis," she says snippily.

He chooses to ignore the second half of what she says, because it is kind of true. "Uh, I think you are deeply overestimating my effect on him."

She makes a disgusted face at him that he pretends to not see in the window's reflection. "Please. Don't give me that crap. He adores you."

Jesse decides it is better to not say anything else until they arrive on set; Emma seems to take his silence as some sort of victory. There is too much empirical evidence for Jesse to firmly claim that 'no, Andrew does not like me that much,' without feeling like he is lying. People don't stop by when they are tired and jetlagged to meet your cats if they don't like you.

When they arrive on location, he immediately spots Andrew, who is in full Spider-Man regalia minus the mask -- and sweatpants. Jesse has to savagely bite his lip and press a hand over his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. Emma looks over at him and catches his eye, grinning. "He's a delicate flower," she informs him with a wink. "Wait 'til you see his ass in that getup."

Jesse's jaw actually drops as he gapes at her soundlessly -- he can't help glancing over at Andrew again, and this time Andrew notices them. His face instantly brightens and Jesse tries to arrange his expression into something that doesn't immediately suggest that he is thinking, _Emma just said your ass looks good in that and I would like to see if she's right, so if you could take off those pants and turn around..._

"Nice outfit," Jesse manages to get out with minimal stuttering when Andrew makes his way over to them.

"Thanks, picked it out myself," Andrew responds and bumps his shoulder against Jesse's in greeting. Then he raises an eyebrow and looks over at Emma. She stares back, her expression neutral. They continue to stare for several long seconds before Jesse can't stand to look at them looking at each other like they're having a telepathic conversation that is probably about him anymore. He reaches up and hooks a hand around the junction of Andrew's neck and shoulder and Andrew ducks his head obligingly, breaking the staring contest. Jesse pulls him a little closer and says quietly in his ear, "Emma is scaring me and now she knows where I live, I don't think I'll ever be safe again."

Andrew bites his lip and smiles at the same time, his eyes meeting Jesse's as he straightens back up. Jesse flicks a glance over at Emma, who rolls her eyes at them and flounces off to the hair and makeup trailer. "You're welcome!" she calls over her shoulder.

"So, you're here," Andrew notes glibly after they've stood there silently for a minute.

"I got Emma-napped," Jesse explains. "Plus I heard there was this big movie star -- holy shit, Martin Sheen."

To Jesse's utter mortification, Andrew calls him over -- like he doesn't have better things to do than be introduced to Jesse? -- and leaves him there, with Martin Sheen, because he has to go do something that involves taking off the sweatpants and it's possible Jesse sneaks a look at Andrew's ass while managing to spit out a few words to form a coherent sentence to say to _Martin Sheen_. When Emma reappears a while later, Jesse is coping pretty well with having a casual conversation with "please, call me Martin," even though he has no business being on this movie set. She joins them for a while until a PA comes around looking for Martin.

"I am way less mad at you for getting me out of bed now," Jesse tells Emma gravely after he is out of earshot.

"You weren't mad at me at all," she counters calmly.

"Fine. Can you pretend I was? I feel like I should've been since I got four hours of sleep and I'm not sure what time zone my body thinks it's in right now. And I barely got to see my cats."

Emma pats him on the shoulder. "Okay, you were mad at me for getting you to come see Andrew. That's completely believable."

"Don't you have work to go do?" he asks.

"Yes," she replies with an air of serenity. "Marc knows you're here and he's cool with it, so don't worry about getting kicked out. Try not to pass out if Martin speaks to you again. Sally's around here somewhere, too, just to warn you."

It's less awkward than Jesse expects, wandering around a set for a movie he isn't in. He knows he doesn't belong, but the thought is more comforting than anything, since it's _right_ for him to not belong here. It's kind of calming, since no one is looking for him or waiting on him or worrying about him messing up his hair or clothes. Everyone is busy doing their jobs, so he drifts through the crowd of crew and stuntmen, not speaking to anyone, smiling when someone smiles at him. He watches Andrew do a lot of running and climbing on top of cars. Between takes, Andrew sits on top of a lime green Hummer and talks to Emma, who stays on the ground.

Time passes quickly when there are so many things to pay attention to. Emma finds him when she's not on camera, Andrew does the same but far less frequently, since he is, after all, Spider-Man. Jesse eats lunch with Emma and Sally Field, then tries to take a nap in Emma's trailer. He dozes for a while, but the surroundings are so foreign he's too tense to really sleep, so he goes back to observing.

Near the end of the day there is a PA who looks so completely frazzled Jesse ends up offering to help her carry half a dozen giant stacks of documents she is trying to get across the set into a trailer without dropping them everywhere or running into anyone. She barely glances at him before accepting his help gratefully.

Naturally, he's holding a stack of papers and trying to dodge what seems like a hundred or so crew members when Emma pops up beside him. "What are you doing?"

"Uh, I'm -- stealing stuff?" He jerks his head back in the direction of the remaining stacks. "Helping. Some PA looked like she was going to burst into tears."

Emma, because she is a nice person, goes and grabs a pile and walks with him. "You're so weird."

"I think this is a more acceptable kind of weird than one that involves listening to musical theater and having three cats." Emma laughs like he has just told a funny joke instead of the sad truth.

The PA passes them on her way back and her eyes widen as she really looks at him after registering one of the principal cast members walking beside him. Jesse smiles at her in what he hopes is a reassuring fashion and she nearly runs into another PA hurrying to get somewhere before scurrying away herself.

"Hey now," Emma says, scolding. "No charming random women."

"She kind of looked like she was going to cry again, I don't think that counts as charming. Though it is consistent with the reaction I get from most people."

Emma just sighs and rolls her eyes in an exaggerated fashion.

They quickly finish moving things and then Emma nonchalantly tells him, "Speaking of crying, I think Garfield might be having a little bit of a mental breakdown, you might want to go see if he's okay. He's in his trailer which is," she points, "over there."

Jesse stares at her. She stares back, then makes a little shooing motion with her hands. "Go on. He needed time to change out of the Spidey suit, anyway. You'll have to find a reason besides emotional turmoil to get him naked." There is a choked noise that Jesse realizes is coming from him. "And tell him he is a great Peter Parker, because he is."

***

Emma is a lying liar who lies, since Jesse ends up getting to the door of Andrew's trailer at the same time Andrew does, Andrew still wearing sweatpants over the Spider-Man suit. Now Jesse is sitting on the couch pointedly not looking at Andrew as he changes back into casual clothes because he's pretty sure that waiting outside until Andrew is done getting naked would have been even more suspicious than the shade of red his face currently is.

Back in jeans and a slightly horrible plaid shirt, Andrew flops onto the couch next to Jesse, long limbs sprawled out, taking up more room than should be physically possible. He pretends that doesn't immediately make him think of Ophelia somehow taking up half his bed every night.

Jesse has to clear his throat before he can ask, "What's your call time tomorrow?" He's not sure if Andrew just looks thoroughly tired (he does) or if tired is being combined with an exhaustive amount of stress.

"Late afternoon, thank fuck." Andrew straightens up a little, tugging on the cuff of his shirt. "Emma and I are doing some night time scenes tomorrow, the stunt guys will be jumping off of things and running up walls all morning."

"That's good?" Jesse ventures cautiously. How do you ask someone if they are about to have a nervous breakdown? Andrew doesn't _appear_ to be mentally questioning his purpose in life, but Jesse isn't sure what that's supposed to look like since he's careful to avoid mirrors and other people when he's doing it himself.

"Oh, god, what if this is all shit?" Andrew moans suddenly, hunching over to bury his face in his hands. Words pour forth like a dam has broken. "I'll be the guy that ruins Spider-Man and they'll fire me and no one will ever hire me again and then they'll redo the series a third time and get some properly famous actor who's younger--"

Okay, evidently this is what Andrew looks like when he's stressed.

"-- and then I'll, I'll fling myself off a building or something --"

It needs to stop. "Andrew."

"-- and some tabloid will make a joke about 'if only he wasn't the worst Spider-Man ever he could've saved himself' --"

Right now. "Andrew!"

"-- and Tobey Maguire will show up at my funeral and say I never should have tried --"

It's not as if Jesse doesn't understand the emotion behind everything Andrew is saying, but Andrew is sounding more and more wrecked with every word that comes out of his mouth; this clearly isn't a healthy sharing of feelings, it's Andrew talking himself into a full-blown mental meltdown.

"Hey!" Jesse barks sharply, he can't remember the last time he raised his voice at anyone for anything. The shock of it is enough to stop Andrew from outlining tabloid articles about his impending suicide, at least.

"Sorry," Andrew says in a very small voice, breath hitching. Then, the words almost jumbled together, "Oh my god you yelled at me."

Jesse scoots closer on the couch and gently grabs Andrew's wrists to pull them away from his face. Seeing his red-rimmed eyes sends a stab of physical pain through Jesse's chest and he is overcome with the need to fix the expression on Andrew's face in any way he can. In that moment, he probably would have jumped off a building himself if it would make Andrew _not look like that anymore_. Andrew is refusing to look at him, staring down intently at the worn carpet.

"Hey," Jesse says again, softly. "I'm sorry. I'm not emotionally equipped to handle you talking about throwing yourself off a building for the hypothetical good of a superhero franchise. Or, you know, for any reason. Please don't do that."

Andrew doesn't reply except for making a choked whimpery noise as he slumps sideways into Jesse's lap. Jesse willfully ignores the discomfort caused by the shoulder digging into his thigh and adjusts his hold to hook one arm over Andrew's chest, the other hand coming up to slide his fingers into Andrew's hair.

He tries to channel the therapist who reminds him on an almost weekly basis that he's allowed to be happy. "It's not going to be shit," he says confidently, even though he has no basis for the statement. Reassuring people isn't about knowing for sure everything is going to be okay, it's about the hope that it will be. Remembering what Emma said, he adds, "You are a great Peter Parker." From what he'd seen it was true, Andrew was focused enough that he'd be good at almost anything. Of course, like all actors, Andrew has no control over the editing or the scoring or a myriad of other things, but bringing that up would not be helpful.

"Will you come with me?" Andrew asks abruptly. "When I have to watch the final cut for the first time?"

"You'll probably have to explain the plot to me." He rubs his fingers over the shorter hair at the nape of Andrew's neck where it is not crunchy with product.

"That's easier than explaining my desire to jump off a building," Andrew mutters, sounding a little better but speaking to Jesse's knees. Andrew knows that Jesse understands that part.

"I'll be there," Jesse promises. "And Emma will come, right? We'll cover your eyes or hold your hands, whatever you want." Hopefully his agent won't have a fit that he just committed to something with no known date or location, but he can't say _no_.

"Okay," Andrew says in a close to a normal-sounding voice. Being well-versed in Andrew-speak, Jesse can tell he's obviously still not okay.

"You should go to your hotel and shower or something and then come over to my place and I'll feed you and give you cats to play with. It's, um, stress-reducing." Jesse could write a book on Awkward Invitations 101. Well, not a book. A pamphlet, maybe. "Or you could just go to your hotel and do whatever you want. Obviously." He makes himself stop talking through sheer force of will and concentrates on tracing the arc of hair around Andrew's ear with his fingertips.

Andrew untucks his arm from where it's been folded tightly against his chest to reach down and squeeze Jesse's ankle, which would be a weird gesture coming from anyone else, but Andrew is also using his lap as a pillow, so weird isn't much of an issue between them. "Okay," Andrew says again. "To the first part of that."

"Aren't you tired?" Jesse asks, kind of wishing to take back the invitation because now he feels like he's guilting Andrew into it by making him feel bad about Jesse's social awkwardness.

"I want to spend more time with you, and you promised me food. Also I'm still getting over you shouting at me, because I've never heard you shout at anyone before."

"Andrew --"

"I can't look at you because I know you are making that _face_ and if I look at you then... ugh," Andrew grumbles articulately, pressing his own face against Jesse's knees.

Jesse lets him leave it at 'ugh' and they sit there in the trailer for a few minutes, until Andrew sits up and scrubs a hand over his face and through his hair. He bumps his shoulder against Jesse's and heaves himself off the couch, half-turning to hold out a hand to haul Jesse to his feet. Then they go in search of Emma.

***

It's just starting to rain when Emma (well, technically Dave, Emma's driver) drops Jesse off at his building. On his way past Paul the doorman Jesse tells him Spider-Man will be coming by, so could he please let him in when he gets here? In the elevator, Jesse spares a moment to wonder how Emma managed to make it to his apartment, but ultimately dismisses it as unimportant.

The first thing Jesse does after he gets home is scoop the litter boxes, which should've been done in the morning but Emma had rushed him out the door and he'd forgotten. Luckily, his neighbor who cat-sits for him when he's away is very good at keeping the boxes clean, so they aren't too bad. Emma-cat wanders in to supervise the process. As soon as they are clean she uses one, because she is evil, and it's still kind of amazing in a gross way that something that small can produce so much poop. Jesse washes his hands three times and changes the air freshener plug in.

The second thing he does is vacuum. There's a vague hope in the back of his mind that Andrew will have forgotten all about the bits of paper and cardboard all over the carpet from overenthusiastic kitten gnawing that littered the floor the last time he'd been there.

Then he starts making dinner, which feels a little too date-like, but it's not, right? Jesse likes it when people cook for _him_ for any reason at all; he just wants to cheer Andrew up. He triple-checks that he steers clear of anything that could have come into contact with any sort of tree nut, since anaphylactic shock would definitely not make Andrew feel better. He's most of the way to a pretty good stir fry when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

_I am here but i dont want to knock and scare the elusive third cat._

Jesse stares at his phone while contemplating the possibility that Andrew is a figment of his imagination. He quickly types out a reply. _You're standing in the hallway texting me because you don't want to scare one of my cats?_

_Uhhhh yes. I wouldnt be if you would let me in. Feeling weird about it now. :(_

For a few seconds Jesse allows himself to acknowledge how weird it feels to have his home invaded so frequently, but then he slides his phone back in his pocket and shakes his head. He points a finger at Fyodor and Ophelia crouching on top of the fridge and says, "Stay," then scoops up Emma-cat because the only thing she can be trusted to do is walk all over the cutting board and try to eat vegetables. He lets a sheepish-looking Andrew in and hands him the kitten along with a balled-up piece of notebook paper from a kitchen drawer.

"Here. Go sit on the couch and throw this while I finish up," he instructs, trying not to think too much about how Andrew's smile doesn't look as bright as it usually does.

"Throw...?" Now Andrew looks like he is waiting to be the butt of a joke he doesn't think will be funny, which makes Jesse frown.

"The paper, not the cat. Throwing the cat will make me angry. That was a lie, but it will make me really unhappy and you don't want to see that. And, um, look on top of the fridge on your way past, it might be your only chance to see Ophelia before she notices I let someone in."

Andrew smiles at him again, a little more genuinely, gingerly holding the kitten to his chest like she isn't the squirmiest creature ever. Predictably, Ophelia leaps off the fridge and hightails it toward Jesse's bedroom when she sees Andrew. When Jesse pokes his head out of the kitchen a few minutes later, dinner finished, Emma-cat comes tearing past him after the paper ball and he can hear Andrew laughing.

"I had no idea that cats did this," Andrew calls from the living room.

Jesse walks down the short hallway until he can see Andrew lounging sideways on the couch to study his expression. After a few moments he decides that he does look a little more relaxed, at least. "Oh, well, you can get them like that at the shelter. It's one of the checkboxes on the adoption form -- 'will play fetch.'"

"It's pretty fantastic," says Andrew. Emma-cat comes trotting back to him, head and tail held high with the wad of paper in her mouth. "She looks so proud of herself."

"Ophelia will sort of play too, but it takes her ten minutes to get around to bringing it back and she usually leaves it just out of reach. Emma-cat is much more efficient about it, when she doesn't decide to just tear it apart." As if on cue, there is a ripping noise as the kitten starts shredding the paper with her teeth. "Um, dinner's ready, but it just occurred to me that I probably should have asked what you wanted to eat, I could've gotten groceries -- or we can get takeout from somewhere if you want --" Jesse is more than aware he is babbling, but knowing that he's doing it usually makes it worse.

"Jesse." Andrew's smiling again.

"Yes?" Jesse takes a few steps backwards toward the kitchen as Andrew gets off the couch and starts toward him.

"I think my mum was the last person to cook anything for me and that was six months ago," he says thoughtfully. "I'm sure whatever you made is lovely."

"You have no basis for that assumption, I could be a terrible cook. I could have put walnuts or almonds in it and accidentally kill you." He continues backing into the kitchen until he's essentially let himself be trapped between the fridge and Andrew.

No one who is being threatened with the possibility of death by tree nut should look that happy, but Andrew does. "But I know that you know that, because that's the sort of thing you'd remember and worry about even if you weren't cooking anything for me."

"Um, yeah, I guess." They stand there silently for a minute, less than a foot away from each other, and then Fyodor decides it's a good time to rub his face in Jesse's hair which is just about level with the top of the fridge. Andrew cracks up, breaking through the sudden tension. Jesse ducks away from the cat and gets out plates, shoving Emma-cat off the counter.

They eat, Andrew making what have to be exaggerated noises of appreciation. The kitten gives up on trying to steal food from one of them after about five minutes and saunters off to fall asleep in a box. They talk a little about when Spider-Man will wrap, Jesse's next project, what Andrew wants to do next provided Spider-Man doesn't bomb and ruin him (Andrew's take on the situation, not Jesse's.)

They argue briefly over Andrew helping Jesse clean up -- Jesse doesn't let him and makes him go sit on the couch instead. When Jesse is done with the dishes (leaving them sit will drive him up the wall), Andrew is messing with his phone, stretched out the full length of the couch. What makes Jesse stop short is Ophelia, curled up against Andrew's chest, calmly gazing at him over Andrew's knees.

"You seem to have made a friend," he says, sounding more like he thinks Andrew has made unicorns appear out of nowhere to prance around the room shooting rainbows and sparkles out of their asses. Jesse is positive that even his mother hasn't seen Ophelia for more than thirty seconds since he adopted her.

Andrew is petting Ophelia gingerly with the hand not holding his phone. He looks around it to study Jesse's expression. "My strategy was to pretend she wasn't there and be very non-threatening. It, uh, it worked? You look upset. Mildly alarmed. Not happy."

Ophelia doesn't even move when Andrew folds his legs up to give Jesse room to sit down. Jesse sets the beer he brought for Andrew on the coffee table and lowers himself to the couch gingerly, afraid the shift in weight will disturb the cat. Ophelia closes her eyes and utterly ignores him.

"Jess?"

"I'm -- I'm not upset." Having a silly crush on someone like Andrew isn't surprising. Realizing that the crush is unquestionably _love_ because of a cat is a bit of a shock. He clears his throat and shakes his head a little, waving his bottle at Ophelia, trying to act like less of a spaz. "I don't think my mom believes me when I tell her I still have Ophelia because she hasn't seen her in over a year," he tries to explain. "You're kind of amazing."

"Oh," Andrew replies, the faintest blush creeping up his face. Combined with the way he's looking at Jesse, it's stupidly attractive. Andrew breaks eye contact and tosses his phone onto the table, grabbing the beer instead. He downs almost half of it in one pull. "What happened to her tail?"

"You mean the bend?" Andrew nods. "Before she ended up at the shelter she was in a tiny apartment with two dozen other cats who weren't being cared for properly. Probably happened then. She was so skittish and nervous, it's why I ended up keeping her. It didn't seem right to make her adjust to somewhere else after she'd gotten used to me and Fyodor. Plus she's black, there's some statistic about how black cats are the least likely to be adopted. Except in October, when people try to adopt them as party props."

"How'd you end up with Fyodor?" Andrew asks, like even after that rambling he is still honestly curious about Jesse's adoption process.

"You really want to hear me talk about my cats? You're reminding me of my grandmother," Jesse deadpans, but smiles back at Andrew when he grins.

"I'd like to hear you talk about anything. You could tell me about how Emma managed to drag you out of your flat, or about what it's like to do a voice for an animated film, or about drawing the Democratic Republic of Congo on old maps, or -- or anything -- I'd listen." It's impossible to keep looking at Andrew with that adoring expression on his face.

"That sounds like it would be incredibly dull for you. I think you need some new, more exciting friends," Jesse tells him seriously, his attention focused on picking the label off his beer bottle.

"But I want _you_." The earnestness in Andrew's voice is enough to make Jesse swallow compulsively and take a long pull from his beer (the label is half hanging off) to avoid saying something stupid. Andrew coughs a little and pulls himself into an upright position, tucking his long legs beside him so that his thigh is pressed up against Jesse's. Jesse concentrates on not hyperventilating or inhaling beer. "So," he continues like Jesse's heart isn't trying to beat its way out of his chest, "why did you keep Fyodor?"

Ophelia, having lost her cuddle partner, hops onto the table and lays back down. "I got Fyodor four years ago, I think? Right after I finished doing _The Living Wake_. He had a hyperthyroidism problem that needed surgery and he was older, lots of people only want kittens. So I kept him."

Andrew leans over to use Jesse's shoulder as a pillow, which can't be all that comfortable. "I'm sensing a pattern. What was wrong with Emma-cat?"

"I think you're getting the wrong idea."

"Hmm, I'm sure I'm not." There's a long pause. "Are you going to answer me?"

"Are you going to leave it alone if I don't?" Jesse jostles his shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge him.

"Nope," Andrew replies cheerfully, wrapping his hand around Jesse's elbow to hold him still.

"Nothing was wrong with her," Jesse tries, "I just took her in to socialize her with other cats."

"You are sorely mistaken if you think I can't tell when you're lying, Jesse. You sound too sure of yourself for that to be the truth," he says, squeezing Jesse's arm for emphasis.

"That's... a little insulting."

"It is not," Andrew counters. "That's just the way I can tell. If I had been looking at you when you said that I probably would have been distracted by -- by your face and maybe I would have believed you, but I wasn't so I don't," he concludes with a nod against Jesse's shoulder and another squeeze.

"That is some of the strangest logic I have ever heard, but fine. Her leg was broken. The fur's all grown back now, you can't even tell. I was going to give her back to the shelter, but then _someone_ I will not mention gave her a name." He uses his elbow to bump Andrew in the ribs, not hard enough to be called a jab. "Can we please stop talking about this? I'm not the patron saint of sick cats and this is making it sound like I think I am."

Andrew laughs quietly. "Of course not, you're the wrong religion for sainthood."

"Very funny."

"I thought so," says Andrew, smiling.

At least, Jesse thinks, this has completely gotten Andrew's mind off of Spider-Man. He notices Andrew has finished his beer and shrugs him off to get new ones, then grabs his laptop from the desk. "We are going to watch a movie," he decides aloud, ignoring the surprised sound Andrew makes. He sits back down on the couch with the computer. The space Jesse leaves between them immediately disappears as Andrew shifts closer without hesitation.

In light of his recent realization about the nature of his feelings toward Andrew, all the touching _should_ be distracting, alarming, but Jesse has been operating under the knowledge of the crush for so long it makes no difference. Which probably means that he's been in love for far longer than he assumed, but there isn't anything he can do to change that.

He can feel the weight of Andrew's incredulous stare as he navigates through iTunes until he finds the right file. "What?" he asks defensively. "I'm trying to cheer you up, if you hadn't noticed. Did you expect _Schindler's List_?"

"Uh, no. You have, like, five movies and one of them is _How to Train Your Dragon_. How are you real?" It would be mean if Andrew didn't sound so delighted about it.

"My sister put it on here," Jesse tries to explain. "She thought I'd like it. I'm sorry I'm so terrible at this, you'd think I would have learned something from everyone who's ever calmed me down."

For some reason that makes Andrew smile. "Terrible at what?"

"Attempting to cheer you up. Usually I'm the one panicking -- not that you're, uh -- not that... wow, I'm really bad at this." Jesse presses his lips together to stop himself from talking, teeth closing around his lower lip.

Andrew pats Jesse's knee, then worms his other arm around Jesse's shoulders to half-hug him. "You probably shouldn't have reminded me that I was going mental over it earlier, but other than that please consider me relaxed and de-stressed. I just get scared, you know? I want to succeed so badly."

"You will," Jesse tells him confidently. "And don't say I'm lying because I sound sure of myself, I'm not. I'm sure of you."

***

Several hours and a considerable amount of alcohol later, they are mostly inebriated and sprawled out sideways on the bed in Jesse's spare room, which usually houses foster cats, except for tonight when it will have an Andrew sleeping in it. Ophelia is curled up around Andrew's head, her face hidden in his hair, the tip of her tail twitching rhythmically.

"So did your sister have to explain the plot to you the first time 'round?" Andrew asks, nudging Jesse playfully in the ribs.

"Maybe, yes, a little -- I spent most of the movie very focused on wishing for a pet dragon."

"It'd probably try to eat your cats," Andrew says thoughtfully. His hand is drifting downward, skirting toward the hem of Jesse's tshirt. The touch is so light it's beginning to tickle.

Jesse wriggles a few inches sideways on the bed to get away from the hand. "That's, hmm, true." He hasn't gone far enough, because Andrew pokes him in the side and he makes an involuntary noise that could uncharitably be called a squeak. "If you tickle me right now I will throw up," he warns, scooting farther away and turning on his side.

Andrew holds his hand up in a pacifying gesture before latching onto Jesse's forearm. "Come back," he pleads, looking dejected. Jesse is able to resist for about half a second before he shifts back into Andrew's reach, getting a smug smile in return until Ophelia flips her tail and gives Andrew a mouthful of fur.

"Bleh," Andrew sputters, batting the tail away. "Keep that to yourself, cat. Hmm. Just so you know I am now trying very hard to not point out the obvious parallels between Toothless and Ophelia." Andrew is the only person Jesse knows who is capable of saying the phrase 'obvious parallels' when drunk.

"Thanks, I think? Except you kind of just did."

"I'm just saying, I mean, you know, the tail thing."

"Yeah, but she doesn't breathe fire. Or fly. Not when I'm around, anyway. That'd be cool. No, wait. That would be awful, she'd burn the building down."

"Are we seriously having this conversation?"

"You started it."

" _I_ did?"

"Umm, maybe?"

For several minutes there is only the sound of two grown men doing a lot of giggling, but they are several steps past sober so Jesse figures that makes it a little okay, or at least excusable. Really, the end goal was to make Andrew feel better, and now he feels a _lot_ better, right?

Their amusement is interrupted by Andrew's phone suddenly blaring Arcade Fire, which Jesse only recognizes because Andrew had forced copies of all their albums on him a few months ago. Andrew wriggles around to fish the phone out of his pocket, holds it up, and promptly drops it on his face. Jesse makes a very undignified snorting sound as Andrew makes a wounded noise and clutches his nose with one hand while feeling around on the bed for the phone, which goes abruptly silent.

Jesse takes pity on him, grabbing it from between Ophelia's back paws and looking at the screen because being buzzed apparently makes him nosey. The phone beeps and a text notification appears on the display above the missed call. "Emma wants to know where you are," he reads.

"Oh," says Andrew, flailing a little in a half-hearted attempt to take his phone back. Jesse catches his wrist to hold his hand still and passes it over. For about ten seconds Andrew tries to type a response, almost drops it on his face again, then flings the phone onto the bed between them. "You do it."

Andrew has typed: _sat jhessses._

Because he is fairly certain he will also drop the phone on his face, Jesse sits up to backspace Andrew's reply and type one of his own, which takes about twice as long as it usually does since his hand-eye coordination isn't much better at this point. _This is jesse. Andrew isnt sober enough to use his phone w/o hurting himself. What do you want?_

Emma replies five seconds later. _Ooo r u taking advntg?? :)_

_Yes i am fondling his phone as i type._

"Hey," Andrew complains, sitting up far enough to lean against Jesse's back and hook his chin over his shoulder to peer at the screen. "Stop having a conversation without me."

The next text from Emma is embarrassing even in his current state. _Jesse i think some1 needs to xplain phonesex to u._

"Does that say phone sex?" Andrew's arm loops around his waist as he forces Jesse's hand upward by pushing at his elbow so he can read the display. "Why are you talking about phone sex? Who are you having phone sex with!"

"Uh, what? No one, calm down. Emma thinks she's funny."

"Here, let me --" his other arm wraps around Jesse and he takes the phone, tapping out something that could have been _Jesse is not allowed to have phone sex_ if it didn't have twenty extra letters creatively inserted and a few more things at the end that could have been words if they'd had any vowels. Andrew hits send and then manages to turn the phone off, dropping it unceremoniously into Jesse's lap as the shutoff tone plays. Jesse hasn't breathed since Andrew started typing, as he is effectively being spooned while sitting upright by the person whose ass he checked out while talking to Martin Sheen.

Andrew seems to realize what he's doing and backs off a little, in a world where 'backing off' means shifting around so only one arm is locked around Jesse's waist while he uses the back of Jesse's shoulder as a pillow. Carefully, Jesse is able to stretch just far enough to deposit the cell phone on the nightstand without pulling away from the hold.

"I wanted to ask you something," Andrew says suddenly, words running together at the edges. He's addressing the back of Jesse's head, but he is close enough that Jesse can hear him perfectly.

"No, I will not be Facebook friends with you," Jesse jokes weakly.

"Ha ha. Ha. That wasn't the question." Andrew falls silent, the fingers that are curled distressingly close to Jesse's hip twitch faintly.

"You didn't actually ask me a question," Jesse points out some time later when it becomes evident Andrew needs prompting.

Andrew doesn't answer for long enough that Jesse begins to wonder if he fell asleep sitting up. When he does finally speak, he's so quiet Jesse can barely make out what he's saying. "Well, that's because I can't."

"You can't?"

"Right." He flops backwards onto the bed, using his hold on Jesse to pull him down as well. They stare at the ceiling, side by side, much closer than before. "What if you don't want me to?"

"Don't want you to what?" There's no reply. "You should go to sleep, you aren't making much sense." Struggling to his feet, Jesse turns and manages to pull an unresisting Andrew's shoes off, then drags his legs onto the bed so he's laying on it in the proper orientation. Ophelia gets up and snuggles down between Andrew's calves.

"Do you want me to?" Andrew asks in a small voice after Jesse turns out the light.

"Do whatever makes you happy," Jesse replies, refraining from trying to get Andrew to clarify whatever it is he's talking about. Drunk Andrew is not good at explaining anything and probably won't remember what he was going on about in the morning. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, I love you."

"I love you, too," Jesse replies, mouth on autopilot. The words don't hit him until he's laying in his own bed with Emma-cat curled up and purring by his neck. Andrew had said it first.

***

The unfamiliar sound of the shower running in the guest bathroom wakes Jesse up the next morning. It only qualifies as morning because it is still technically ten minutes before noon. He is hemmed in by cats, which is typical. His mouth tastes like something took a crap in it and then died in said crap, which is not so typical.

Brushing his teeth comes before feeding his cats today, so Jesse makes his way into the kitchen after he's brushed, flossed, and gargled away the decomposing corpse in his mouth. Farther down the hall, Emma-cat is alternately crying at the closed guest bathroom door and rolling onto her back to shove her paws under it. Fortunately, she quickly loses interest when he starts filling up food bowls. Ophelia calmly licks Fyodor's ear by the kitchen table as they wait for the kitten to eat her fill.

As he makes coffee, he contemplates how awkward it is going to be when Andrew gets out of the shower. Nothing had _happened_ last night, obviously. At least nothing of the sort that involved exchanging bodily fluids. It just... hadn't been a conventional 'oh we were so drunk last night' thing, because friends who get drunk together do not usually exchange casual, half-accidental I love yous -- not in Jesse's limited experience, in any case. (He is mostly sure that he's never declared his love for Justin while under the influence, but Justin is his best friend and not the object of his affections. Lust. Love. Whatever.)

It is this line of thinking that makes the first thing he says to a freshly-showered Andrew, "Have you ever met my Justin?" when he wanders into the kitchen a few minutes later.

When Andrew raises his eyebrows and repeats, " _Your_ Justin?" there is a peculiar edge to his voice.

"As opposed to our mutual Justin." He hands Andrew a cup of coffee, two creams and one sugar, and nudges the cats aside to sit at the table.

Andrew sits opposite him before asking, "Our mutual Justin being the one that wears fake glasses and brought sexy back, yes?"

"Yeah. Mine does Broadway and broke up with an Olsen twin. And, one time, repeatedly got called the devil by an interviewer."

Something relaxes in Andrew's face and he tries to hide a smile by sipping his coffee. "No, I haven't met yours."

"You should. Sometime." Jesse pauses, then his brain catches up with his mouth, which has been happening an alarming amount recently. "I mean, if you want to. When you're not busy. Which will probably be never."

"I'd like that. When we're all in the same place at the same time, or, er, when the apocalypse happens," Andrew looks like he is going to say something else, then seems to think better of it and acts like drinking coffee takes a lot of concentration.

Jesse occupies himself with using his foot to pet Emma-cat's stomach, which provokes her into attacking the already ragged hem of his pajama pants. In his effort to not think about the I love yous it is, unsurprisingly, the only thing he can think about it. Having Andrew sitting four feet away isn't helping.

It's not like it's the first time they've ever said they loved each other. There is footage all over the place of their interviews full of Andrew saying that he loves Jesse, almost always quickly followed by a 'as a brother' disclaimer. But if Jesse is honest with himself, which he tries to avoid, last night hadn't sounded like a bro sort of 'I love you, man' declaration. He chews rather aggressively on his lip as he pulls Emma-cat back and forth across the kitchen floor since she refuses to let go of his pant leg. Jesse wonders if it is too soon after Justin's breakup to talk to him about relationship things. Well, lack of relationship things. His therapist would tell him to step out of his comfort zone and go for it, which is why he absolutely cannot mention it to her.

"You sort of look like you're coming up with contingency apocalypse plans," says Andrew, dragging Jesse back into the present. Jesse just shakes his head and blinks at his coffee, halfway through an imaginary conversation with Justin in his head that mostly consists of Justin calling him an idiot. Andrew nudges his knee against Jesse's under the table to get his attention. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just -- thinking." Andrew looks less than satisfied with Jesse's response. "Do you ever imagine having a conversation with someone and then forget that it only happened in your head?"

"I -- no," Andrew says slowly, like he is really thinking about his answer. It's one of the many things that Jesse likes about him. "That's not to say I don't have imaginary conversations in my head, but usually they're so improbable it's not possible for me to mistake them for reality and not just wishful thinking."

"Oh. Mine are usually people telling me that my wishful thinking is moronic. Pretty easy to mistake for reality."

Now Andrew is frowning at him. Abruptly Jesse wishes that they were sitting on the couch instead of at the table, because he would probably be getting hugged right now judging by Andrew's expression. It could have potentially been the last hug he'd get from Andrew, since the Spider-Man filming in New York was wrapping tomorrow and then he'd be gone, back to LA. Jesse feels absurd for mentally lamenting the mere possibility of a hug. _Stop being withdrawn,_ he tries to tell himself as his thoughts continue to spiral. Stop ruining the end of this time with Andrew. He slouches further down in his chair and tips his head back to look at the ceiling, forcing himself to take a deep breath.

"I...um. Do you want me to leave?" Andrew asks quietly. "I mean, I kind of need to leave soon anyway, but I'll go now if you want me to."

"No," Jesse says immediately, "I don't want you to leave. You can, though, I won't blame you."

"Of course you won't," Andrew says with a flat little laugh. "I'm only in town for another day, I'd stay if you asked me to clean up cat vomit."

"Oh no, one of them didn't --" That is exactly what he needs, one of his cats barfing in Andrew's shoe.

"No, Jess, it was just an example." He reaches over and pats Jesse's hand next to his coffee mug. "Okay," Andrew says, pushing back from the table decisively. "I am going to go get us lunch. You can inspect the flat for nonexistent cat barf while I'm gone."

It's enough for him to be able to dredge up a small smile.

Jesse does quickly check the apartment for stray piles of vomit, then takes the fastest shower of his life. The speed turns out to be unnecessary, since Andrew isn't back by the time he's dressed and trying to get his hair to be less... like his hair. He's on the verge of convincing himself that Andrew had used getting lunch as an excuse to leave and not come back when there's a thump on the door.

Andrew's hands are very full. "Did you just knock using your head?" Jesse asks, biting his lip and smiling again.

He gets a relieved, happy grin in response. "I might have. Hush. I have soup! And sandwiches with lots of vegetables and things. Mostly I am excited about the soup. I probably scared Ophelia, didn't I?"

"She'll live."

The soup is very good. Emma-cat manages to climb into Andrew's lap and almost succeeds in sticking her face in his. They migrate to the couch when they're done eating.

Jesse is checking his email when Andrew nudges his thigh with his foot and asks, "How long has my phone been off?"

"Um." Jesse coughs to cover a laugh. "You might have turned it off last night after telling Emma that I wasn't allowed to have phone sex."

Andrew stares at him with slightly wild eyes, cheeks turning red. "Please tell me you're joking."

Jesse puts his laptop aside and holds his hand out for the phone. It only takes a few seconds for him to get to the last awfully typed text and pass it back, taking in Andrew's horrified expression as he rereads it with amusement.

"Wow," Andrew opens and closes his mouth several times, but no more words come out.

"If it makes you feel any better, the thought of ever trying to have phone sex is so embarrassing it makes me want to throw up." If the way Andrew hides his face in his hands is any indication, it does not make him feel better. It probably doesn't help that Jesse is still laughing quietly.

"Oh my god," Andrew finally gets out, curling up into a ball to hide his face with his knees instead. Jesse pats his shoulder in consolation. "I'm so sorry. Emma is never, ever going to let me live that down."

"Probably not," Jesse agrees. "Maybe she couldn't decipher it," he adds helpfully. "There were a lot of extra letters in there."

There is only a muffled groan from Andrew. It sounds a bit like "kill me." All of a sudden Andrew unfolds and throws himself into Jesse's lap. "I need a hug."

Jesse obliges, despite the awkward angle. Not exactly the hug he'd hoped for earlier, but good enough. Infinitely better than no hug at all.

Andrew sits up and runs his hand through his hair while making a face. "Now I definitely need to stop at my hotel before I go in to work. If I show up on set in the same clothes I wore yesterday Emma is going to have an aneurysm. Especially after that text."

"What? Why?" Andrew cannot possibly be suggesting what it sounds like he is suggesting. "But -- but she knows you were with me."

"Yes," Andrew agrees patiently, sounding like he is trying to explain something to a small child. "And her brain will explode and I will probably never hear the end of it."

"But why would she..." _assume that we slept together?_ He can't make himself finish the question because Andrew looks horrified again, since evidently the thought of Emma believing that Andrew had had sex with Jesse is a level of awful that cannot be expressed in words. "Never mind," Jesse gets out past the sudden tightness in his throat.

So it had definitely been an 'I love you, man' kind of thing. Of course. It had been stupid of him to entertain the possibility that it could have been something else.

"I should, um, get going," Andrew says, getting up from the couch.

Jesse nods once, staring at his hands clenched together in his lap that had recently had an Andrew in it, but that didn't mean anything either, did it? Nothing beyond Andrew's particular overenthusiastic brand of friendliness. More out of ingrained politeness than anything else, he trails after Andrew to the door.

"Hey, Jess. C'mere." Mechanically, Jesse closes the distance between them with his gaze fixed on the doorknob past Andrew's hip. He's a little surprised when Andrew throws his arms around him and squeezes, but his arms come up automatically to return the hug.

Andrew steps back after a while, but the blatantly affectionate expression on his face doesn't do much to make Jesse feel less like there is a boulder sitting on his chest. "Since I don't know when I'll get to see you again," he explains, then hugs Jesse again for good measure. "Um, bye." And then he is gone.

Okay, so Jesse had never gone so far as to let himself genuinely believe that Andrew could be interested in him as more than a friend, but it still hurt to have even the tiniest possibility snatched away. The last time he'd had a hopeless crush on someone he'd been in school, and he'd gotten over that eventually. (Except Andrew is more than a crush, his brain reminds him unhelpfully.) He wouldn't see Andrew in person for who knew how long, the distance would help him get over it. It would be fine. Maybe he'd foster a litter of kittens before he started filming _Predisposed_.

Ophelia sits down at his feet and meows and he realizes he is still staring at his front door.

Jesse feels very alone.

***

Ten minutes later he calls Emma, panicking.

"Don't make fun of Andrew for that text last night," Jesse says before she can get out any sort of greeting.

It's probably a bad sign that she doesn't need to ask what he's talking about. "Why not? That was going to be my entertainment for the next twelve hours."

"Because he just freaked out about it and I still want him to be my friend and if you make fun of him he'll never want to be around me ever again," he tells her in a rush. He'd come to this conclusion about two minutes after Andrew left, he'd needed another few minutes to convince himself that calling Emma was a good idea. Or, well, not a _bad_ idea.

"Whoa, whoa, could you try speaking at a pace that normal humans can understand?"

Jesse repeats himself, slower.

"Uh, okay, fine. I won't make fun of him for being jealous of all the nonexistent phone sex partners you have."

Jesse opens his mouth, then closes it again with an audible snap. "Jealous?" he gets out.

"Yes," she replies, the last consonant drawing out into a hiss. "Wait, back up, he freaked out how?"

"Well, he just left to make sure he had enough time to change his clothes so you wouldn't think we'd slept together since the thought of having sex with me is repulsive to him." He is aware that he is talking too fast again, but fast is the only speed he can get the words to come out without choking on them.

"What the fuck, Garfield," Emma mutters quietly. Louder, she says, "Jesse. Listen to me. Did he really say that?"

"No, but the horrified expression on his face at the thought of you assuming we'd -- we'd -- you know -- said a lot."

"Okay. No. That can't be what happened."

"I was there," Jesse says indignantly, hurt annoyance bubbling to the surface of his panic.

"Shut up a minute. Actually, shut up until I say otherwise. Okay, so, hmm. You won't let me _Mean Girls_ this and three-way call him while you're on the line, will you?" Jesse doesn't reply in a fit of pique -- Andrew is right, she is bossy. "Answer the question, Eisenberg."

"Oh, am I allowed to talk now?" Jesse is only vaguely familiar with the _Mean Girls_ reference, but it doesn't sound like any good will come of it.

"Yes."

"In that case, I will absolutely not let you do that."

"Right, then you have to promise to at least try to believe me when I call you back after I talk to Garfield to figure out what the hell happened."

"Nothing happened. It's fine. Don't do that. All I wanted was to ask you not to tease him about the text, Em." Jesse is playing dirty now with the use of the nickname, since the first time he'd ever called her by it her eyes had gone all soft and she'd hugged him in the middle of a conversation about farmer's markets.

It has the opposite effect, because she sounds more determined than ever. "Jesse, I'll call you back in a few minutes and if you don't pick up I'll come to your apartment at 4 AM and pour cat litter down your throat."

"Um. Okay."

Jesse stares at the "Call Ended" notification on his phone for a good thirty seconds before setting it gingerly on the coffee table. He is momentarily distracted when Ophelia comes sprinting by, up and over the back of the couch, the kitten chasing close behind. Their disappearance down the hallway is followed by an ominous thud that could be Emma-cat throwing herself at a wall or Ophelia knocking over a floor lamp, but he doesn't have the heart to get up and check. They both go running into the kitchen a few seconds later, so he knows they didn't hurt themselves.

He is conjugating Polish verbs in his head to stop himself from thinking about Andrew (avoidance equals mental stability, after all) when his phone vibrates itself onto the floor, sending him scrambling for it. He accidentally hits the button to accept the call in his flailing and he can hear Emma start talking while it's still on the ground.

"With anyone but me," Emma is saying when he gets it up to his ear.

"Sorry, what?" he asks.

"It's not hard to understand, Jesse, he totally --"

Jesse cuts her off before she can end her sentence with 'hates you.' "No, I just -- I didn't hear you, my phone --"

There is a loud, exasperated sigh. "I _said_ that the whole text was supposed to read 'Jesse is not allowed to have phone sex with anyone but me.' Me being Garfield, I don't have any secret desire to have any sort of sex with you."

"What?" Jesse wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like.

"I know you heard me that time," Emma says, unrelenting.

"That doesn't make any sense," Jesse protests weakly, the uncomfortable swooping feeling in his stomach rivaled only by the hamster wheel his thoughts are spinning on. "Why would he --"

"Because he totally wants to adopt babies with you. Or, well, cats. Probably cats," Emma interrupts him. "I gotta go, Andrew is going to be here in a minute to bitch about going back to LA tomorrow."

She hangs up on him.

What does that make the 'I love you'?

***

It's all Jesse can think about for the next three days.

When he's brushing his teeth, he tries to find a platonic explanation for Andrew wanting to have phone sex with him. He ends up staring into space with toothpaste dribbling down his chin, having focused more on the 'sex' part and less on the 'platonic.'

When he's at the grocery store trying to subtly dodge around the aisles to avoid being noticed, he tries to figure out what Andrew could have possibly wanted to ask him before he'd passed out.

When he's cleaning litter boxes, he wonders if Andrew really would be willing to clean up cat barf.

When he's in a meeting about some substandard script his agent likes but Jesse doesn't, he gets a text from Andrew. _I never asked you anything that night did i?_

Normally Jesse doesn't like to be blatantly rude, but he's pretty sure his agent is too wrapped up in extolling the virtues of the shoddy script to notice if he replies, so he surreptitiously types out, _No you just talked about asking me something without ever doing the asking._ When he looks up again, his agent is glaring at him. He apologizes profusely and shoves his phone in his pocket until the meeting is over even though he feels it vibrate one more time and his fingers twitch with the urge to check it.

He makes it outside to his bike before he lets himself look at the display. Andrew has sent, _Well i was thinking about moving to nyc... what do you think?_

Jesse gapes at his phone. _That_ was the question? Before he can lose what little courage he has, he presses the call button.

Andrew picks up after half a ring, despite the fact he'd sent the last text twenty minutes ago. "Um, hi." Jesse can't tell if he's projecting his own nervousness on Andrew's disembodied voice or if Andrew actually sounds as nervous as Jesse feels.

Jesse digs his teeth into his lip hard enough that he tastes blood to keep from blurting out any inappropriate questions about phone sex. "Hey," he finally says after too long a pause. "The circumstances seemed to merit talking to you instead of trying to emoticon my way through the conversation." Jesse is sure his voice is noticeably shaking.

Thankfully, Andrew starts babbling over the tail end of Jesse's sentence. "I just thought, I mean, I have to go to LA for work a lot, and maybe living there is convenient for that, but then I don't have very many reasons to be in New York, but if I lived there I would? Obviously. And it's sort of in between LA and London, kind of, since the ocean is... there. And you're there. And, um, I could meet your Justin. Before the apocalypse. Then we'd have two mutual Justins, but you'd probably have to find another way to refer to them."

"They do have last names," Jesse notes.

Andrew's laugh is stilted and anxious. "Haha, yes, of course they do. I definitely wasn't just thinking that we could call them Thing One and Thing Two."

Andrew's nervousness is serving to help calm Jesse down. "Like _The Cat in the Hat_?" he asks, smiling stupidly at his phone.

"Oh my god why can't I stop the things that come out of my mouth?" Andrew groans.

A laugh catches him by surprise. "It's okay, I have a lot of experience in saying things before I think about them." He catches sight of a guy across the street with a camera aimed in his direction, and spots another one a block away. "Not that I'm avoiding this conversation, but can I call you back in twenty minutes when I get home?"

"Where are you now?" asks Andrew, sounding like he's expecting Jesse to tell him he's standing in the middle of traffic.

"Outside my agent's building. It's just -- there are at least two paparazzi taking pictures of me that will end up on the internet with some awful caption about bike safety since I am wearing my helmet while not riding my bike. So... "

"Sure. Um. Yeah. In the meantime I'll work on forming coherent sentences."

"Don't worry, I don't expect much from you." Andrew makes a wounded noise, but the paparazzi are making their way closer. "Okay, these guys are getting annoying. Bye."

Jesse fumbles with the bike lock before successfully unchaining it and resists the urge to accidentally-on-purpose roll over either paparazzo's toes. On the ride back to his apartment he forces himself to pay attention to traffic, because like hell is he going to die before he finds out if Andrew is agreeable to the idea of having sex with him. Once he gets to his building, he trips and almost falls down four flights of stairs because he is too impatient and jittery to wait for the elevator. Emma-cat also makes an attempt on his life by rubbing up against his ankles before he's two steps past the door and subsequently he ends up falling over her in his effort to not break her spine or something similarly awful.

"I give up," Jesse tells her, laying sprawled out on his stomach at the entrance to the kitchen. At least he'd missed giving himself a concussion on the corner of the wall by a good two inches. He struggles and awkwardly flails to get his backpack off, not bothering to get up, then props himself up on his elbows to get his phone out. The kitten butts her head against his chin and puts her paws on his shoulder to chew on his hair, like she hadn't just tried to murder him.

The line barely has time to ring before Andrew answers.

"Okay," Andrew says, "I decided I should keep my sentences as short as possible. Should I move to New York? The city, I mean, not the state in general."

"I'm not the best person to ask if you're looking for an objective opinion," Jesse says carefully instead of saying 'yes you should absolutely do that' like he truly wants to.

"I don't want objectivity, I want your opinion. I'd also like to know if you would hang out with me sometimes without me having to ambush you at your flat -- not that there's anything wrong with yours and I am perfectly willing to ambush you but I know you are too polite to ever tell me to go away when you don't want to see me."

'Would you like to _live_ at my place with me and my cats?' Jesse wants to ask, but no. Just... no. That would definitely scare Andrew off because normal people don't ask other people to move in with them just like that, do they? Even in a just-as-roommates way, even though they've lived together previously for work. "That sentence was sort of long," he protests instead.

"Shut up. No, wait, don't shut up. Answer my question, which I know is probably uncomfortable for you but the quicker the better, please, because I might be hiding in the bathroom and I wouldn't put it past Emma to come in here and then I'd have to explain what I'm doing and that would be even more awkward than me asking you this."

"Why are you --"

"That's not important right now," Andrew quickly cuts him off, pleading, "I just -- I need you to answer me. You can say no, I'm not going to be angry with you."

"Well, I don't like LA," Jesse begins, "and I love New York, so I'm biased in its favor. Plus it actually has weather besides smog. And, um," he takes a deep breath, goes over the words in his head so nothing untoward sneaks in when he opens his mouth, "I would really, really like it if you lived near me."

"You would?" He can tell by Andrew's tone that he is smiling.

"Yes, I would," Jesse says firmly, and then all his confidence evaporates like it never existed. What if Andrew ends up hating it? What if he blames Jesse for telling him he'd like him to move there? What if Andrew never speaks to Jesse again after he goes back to LA or London? Jesse's head thumps onto the tile floor and he tries to remember how to breathe.

"Jesse? Are you okay?"

"Yes," he lies.

"You don't sound okay," Andrew says slowly, worried. "Please tell me what's wrong. Are you just saying you want me to move to be nice? I didn't mean to pressure you into answering. Well I kind of did because I didn't think I'd get a straight answer, but --"

"No, that's not... I just..." He manages to take a few deep breaths and feels his heart slow down. The tile is cool on his forehead, and Emma-cat is pawing at his hand. Fyodor meows from the top of the cabinets. "Okay," he says, dragging himself into a sitting position to lean back against the oven door. "Sorry." Jesse pets the kitten, curling her tail around his fingers. Her fur is soft.

"What on earth are you apologizing for?" Andrew doesn't let Jesse answer before continuing, "I really wish I was there right now, I sort of miss you constantly. But the wrap party's next week and after that I was thinking I could fly back out there, maybe, and start looking at places."

"You could, um," starts Jesse, realizing what he's going to say halfway through saying it, "you could stay here while you look, if you want? With me. Since you didn't seem to mind all the cats and cardboard boxes." That didn't count as asking Andrew to move in with him, right?

"I like your cats, Jesse. The boxes just add a certain je ne sais quoi. It's very, um, feng shui, and other non-English phrases." There's a noise in the background that sounds like a door opening, and then, muffled, he can hear Andrew saying, "Yes, sorry, I'll be right there."

"Was it Emma?" Jesse asks, smiling a little despite himself.

"Nah, just an extremely uncomfortable-looking PA. Now he has a weird story to tell about finding Spider-Man hiding in a bathroom," Andrew laughs. "Okay, Jess, I'll figure out when I can fly out there and call you later."

Jesse stays sitting in the kitchen for some time, eyes trailing over the dark wood and stainless steel, the grout between the tiles, the cat fur floating around. Time to clean, he decides.

***

"You'd fit in with the hipsters in East Village," Jesse says slyly, waving the hand not holding their food at Andrew's current ensemble. Not that he didn't like how Andrew dressed, because those jeans in particular cause Jesse to occasionally pretend his shoe is untied so he can fall a few steps behind and covertly appreciate the view.

"I don't think someone wearing a hoodie from the Zuckerberg wardrobe is allowed to comment on my clothes," Andrew replies, raising an eyebrow at him. "Besides, wouldn't it be more hipstery to live in a place where there aren't any hipsters so I can say I found it first?" he asks, glancing sideways at Jesse.

"I don't think hipstery is a word," Jesse tells him seriously as he unlocks the door. "Though I can't say I'm up to date on the whole hipster counterculture movement, or whatever it is they call it."

Andrew just rolls his eyes and fondly bumps his shoulder into Jesse's before swiftly crouching down to scoop up an overenthusiastic Emma-cat trying to make a break for it as soon as the door is open half an inch. Jesse makes his way inside and puts their food down on the table, patting Ophelia on the head to reward her for not hiding when she'd heard them come in. Once the door is closed, Andrew drops Emma-cat unceremoniously and toes off his shoes; ten seconds later she's on the table shoving her head into the takeout bag.

So. Andrew has been staying at his apartment for just over two weeks, and two things have not happened. The first: Andrew has not found an apartment that he likes enough to purchase. The second: Jesse absolutely has not said or done anything to suggest to Andrew that he'd like to make out on the couch with him.

The first thing doesn't bother Jesse at all. As far as he knows, Andrew has been looking at places nearly every day, but none of them have met whatever exacting standards he's holding out for. He's given up asking about it beyond a courteously interested, "Any luck?" over dinner. Anything more specific and Andrew will just smile, shrug, and change the subject. Jesse is starting to suspect that he's waiting for some magical real estate fairy to appear and guide him to the perfect apartment in a pumpkin carriage pulled by really big rats.

(Jesse has met the real estate agent Andrew is using. Her name is Helen and she is nice, but does not carry a magic wand and therefore is probably not capable of rat-drawn carriages. She'd seemed a little harried the second time Jesse had seen her, but not in a busy fairy godmother way -- busy in a 'my client is being difficult' way. Not that fairy godmothers or real estate fairies exist. That's probably bad news for Andrew.)

As for the second, it isn't precisely a secret that Jesse lacks confidence. Second guessing himself is less of a hobby and more of a fixation. So Andrew is temporarily living with him, and it's a lot like it'd been when they were shooting _The Social Network_ , only without having to go on set every day to pretend to not like each other. Except there are Jesse's cats, of course, and it's actually Jesse's home and not just some temporary housing.

Ophelia sleeps with Andrew at night.

Jesse tries not to be jealous of a cat.

(He fails.)

Andrew has also given Ophelia the nickname 'Phia,' which is such an endearingly Andrew thing to do that Jesse can barely think about it without a stupid smile on his face. The smile is impossible to avoid when he actually hears Andrew call her Phia, because he does it in a ridiculous singsongy sort of voice which renders Jesse completely incapable of thinking anything besides 'aww.' When Andrew catches Jesse with this embarrassing expression on his face, he only grins back and keeps right on baby talking the cat.

Two weeks stretch into three, and Jesse may have let it slip to his mother that Andrew is staying with him for a little while. Hallie Kate shows up that weekend, supposedly to see Emma-cat and bug him about the play he's writing, but it's obvious to Jesse that his mother has sent her as a spy.

This is when Jesse learns that he should never leave his sister and Andrew alone in a room because they are perfectly capable of talking to each other without him there and their most obvious common conversational ground is _him_.

He's pulling the bathroom door shut, out of sight in the hallway, when he hears Andrew say, "Your brother should probably get a special thanks in the credits for keeping me sane."

Hallie Kate replies, but Jesse only hears noise and not words. Whatever it was, it makes Andrew laugh and reply, "No, I think he'd probably get mad at me if I suggested that. You don't think so? Maybe I should try it during a press junket."

Jesse sends a sarcastic mental thanks in Hallie Kate's direction for whatever she'd just talked Andrew into and then realizes he is basically lurking in the hallway to eavesdrop and tries to go for casual as he walks back into the living room but probably comes off as spastic. They're way too used to him, though, because neither of them so much as blink in surprise as he trips over an empty box.

Later that night, after Hallie Kate has completed her spy mission and gone home, Jesse is sitting on the couch doing a geography quiz on Sporcle, trying to remember how to spell Kyrgyzstan -- he can never remember if it starts Kry- or Kyr- -- and Andrew's feet are tucked under his thigh, because Andrew's feet are always at subzero temperatures regardless of the ambient room temperature. Fyodor is laying on Andrew's ankles, which doesn't seem like it would be terribly comfortable, but cats are weird like that. Andrew is flipping through a stack of papers Helen had given him the day before, sitting sideways on the couch in order to use Jesse as a footwarmer.

It's all pathetically domestic and Jesse never wants it to end.

Three weeks turn into four, but Jesse isn't sure if the fourth week counts since Andrew is back in LA for most of it to do some ADR work and be bossed around by Emma, though the latter is based solely on Andrew's phone call from LAX recounting the trip as he waited to board his plane.

Ophelia runs off to hide under the bed (she doesn't even _hide_ under Jesse's bed anymore, it's always Andrew's -- er, the guest bed) when she hears what turns out to be Andrew in the hallway fighting with his bag.

"Feed me," Andrew demands imperiously after Jesse lets him in. "Please?" he adds as he lugs his suitcase down the hall to his room. The guest room, Jesse reminds himself for the hundredth time, Andrew is a guest.

Jesse orders pizza and rubs his fingers over the single key in his pocket. He's rubbed the key's teeth so much in the last day he's well on his way to wearing a permanent groove into his thumb. There's a spare key to the apartment that he keeps in a kitchen drawer which Andrew has been borrowing whenever he goes somewhere without Jesse, but during Andrew's trip Jesse had gotten another copy made. The copy that is going to stay in his pocket until he can figure out a good way to give it to Andrew without everything being horribly awkward.

The best idea he's come up with so far involves leaving it on the nightstand in Andrew's -- the guest room with a post-it that says, 'You can keep this one,' preferably on a day when Jesse won't be home very much. Would that be too invasive? Maybe he could just leave it with the note in the kitchen drawer by the other spare key. That is a pretty good idea, since he can probably avoid talking about it completely if he does that. Hopefully.

Casually, he wanders down the hall to see how occupied Andrew is and finds him sprawled out on his stomach on the carpet with one arm extended under the bed.

"Did the under-the-bed monster grab you? I thought I'd had those fumigated, sorry," Jesse says, bemused.

"Um, no. I may be trying to get Phia to come out from under the bed," Andrew admits sheepishly before saying in a singsong voice, "Phia, it's just me, I'm sorry, come out here so I can pet you."

Jesse has the stupid smile on his face. It gets worse when Emma-cat comes in to investigate what all the fuss is about and ends up pacing up and down Andrew's back, sniffing him all over because he smells like airport. Since Andrew is likely not going to give up anytime soon, Jesse goes to his desk to get a post-it to write the note for the key.

He's just closing the kitchen drawer, new key for Andrew inside, when Andrew appears out of nowhere in the entryway. "What're you doing?" he inquires, causing Jesse to whirl around in surprise and fall backwards against the counter, which at least accomplishes getting the drawer closed.

"Nothing?" Jesse tries, shoving his hands in his hoodie pockets and trying to act like leaning against the counter had been his goal all along. "I, um, ordered pizza. It shouldn't be too long, hopefully you won't wither away and die before it gets here."

"Okay," Andrew says slowly, his eyes searching Jesse's face curiously. "I'm going to shower, I think Phia thinks I smell weird."

"Sure," Jesse says, smiling nervously.

Ophelia does emerge from her hiding place to sit pressed up against the bathroom door when she hears the water start to run. Of course, she goes back into hiding again as soon as the pizza arrives; the shower stops a few seconds later.

"She came out for a little bit," Jesse tells Andrew as Andrew walks past him into the kitchen to get plates. Except... that is definitely the sound of a drawer opening and Jesse doesn't keep plates in drawers, who would do that? His suspicions are confirmed when Andrew comes out with the key in one hand, plates in the other. Suddenly the pizza box is the most fascinating thing Jesse has ever seen.

There is nothing but silence, so Jesse sneaks a glance at Andrew. His gaze is fixed on the key that his fingers are curled around, and he's rubbing his thumb over it in much the same way Jesse had been, which somehow gives him the courage to speak. "I, um, I just thought it was kind of silly for you to have to remember to grab the spare key every time you left, what if you forgot and I wasn't here and you had to sit out in the hallway for hours?"

Andrew looks up from the key and then a grin breaks over his face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Jesse smiles helplessly back.

***

It's late when he gets the text from Emma. The only reason Jesse is still half-awake is because he and Andrew had stayed up for hours talking about a whole lot of nothing in celebration of Andrew being back from LA -- because that's something they celebrate now, apparently. There had also maybe been a lot of sitting too close to each other and arms around shoulders in permanent half-hugs and shy smiles and cat cuddling.

_Do u know y i got a txt from garfield with nothing but !!!!!s?_

He's about to reply that no, he has no idea, when he gets a second text. _OMG A KEY?! :D u'll never get rid of him now!_

Jesse blinks, then starts typing before he can think about what he's doing. _Why would I want to get rid of him? You are over invested in whatever this is._

_Damn right i am i have to listen to andrew gush about u all the time. what's next a ring??? :*_

His face is turning very, very red. He shoves his phone in the nightstand drawer and pulls the covers up over his head and, remarkably, falls asleep shortly thereafter. If he has an odd dream about wearing a wedding dress and wandering the streets of Manhattan, no one, not even his therapists, needs to know.

***

When he wakes up the next morning, Andrew is sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed with Ophelia in his lap.

Jesse makes a startled noise and tries to ask, "What's going on?" but it comes out more like, "Whrrgnnon?" Andrew is just a blur at the end of the bed as Jesse gropes around on the nightstand for his glasses and comes up empty-handed. Either one of the cats had thoughtfully knocked them onto the floor, or he'd left them in the bathroom. Jesse sits up and waves a hand in Andrew's direction to forestall whatever he is going to do or say and stumbles into the en suite bathroom, where his glasses... are not. Instead he puts his contacts in and brushes his teeth for good measure.

When he comes back, Andrew hasn't moved. Jesse sits upright against the headboard, but slides his legs back under the comforter because he's only wearing a tshirt and boxers and he can't look at Andrew without something else between them. Andrew's lips are pressed together and his eyes are big and sad-looking. This can't be good.

"I'm a bad person," Andrew starts, breaking eye contact. Jesse shakes his head immediately, because Andrew is one of the best people he knows, he must know that, surely?

"No, I am," Andrew insists. "I'm not sure where to start explaining. But after... after last night I just can't stay here without being honest about -- about everything, and, um, god I don't know where to begin."

Jesse's brain catches hold of the _can't stay here_ and it rattles in his skull in melodramatic reverberations, getting louder and louder as the seconds tick by and Andrew stares at the cat in his lap without speaking. Obviously the key had been way too creepily relationship-suggestive, implying commitment when Jesse isn't even brave enough to try to put words to whatever it is between them. He should have just put the second key in the drawer, no note asking Andrew to keep it, because now he is going to leave and go back to London or LA and _why_ had he thought the key was a good idea? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Hey, Jess, hey," Andrew says, reaching out to grab Jesse's ankle through the covers. "It's not anything you did, okay? I'm the bad person here, you're wonderful and lovely and please stop thinking whatever it is you're thinking because the look on your face is going to kill me."

Jesse tries to school his face into blankness -- which should be _easy_ \-- but he fails miserably if Andrew's expression is anything to go by. Then he can't see Andrew's expression because he's pushing Ophelia aside and scooting up the bed to sit next to him. Andrew slips an arm around Jesse's waist and tugs a little; nothing could stop Jesse from leaning into Andrew's side. He twists his fingers together in his lap until Andrew reaches over with his free hand and puts it on top of Jesse's, stilling them. Andrew rubs his thumb over a two inch long scar on Jesse's wrist that makes it look a little like he tried to kill himself but is actually from Emma-cat.

Jesse is about to explain it when Andrew starts talking again, quieter. "I could start at the beginning, but I don't even know when that was anymore, so that's not an option. So, um. I guess I should tell you it's going to be nearly impossible for me to find somewhere I want to live in New York."

"Oh?" Jesse replies tonelessly, teeth worrying away at his bottom lip. He tries to move his hands away, but Andrew latches onto one wrist with a slightly sweaty grip and refuses to let go.

"Yeah," Andrew draws the word out into a sigh. "There aren't many places that come furnished with half a dozen empty boxes, three cats, and a Jesse."

The echo of _can't stay here_ begins to fade, leaving space for other thoughts to form. It still takes Jesse several long moments to produce a response. "If that's what you're making Helen look for, no wonder she looks so stressed out. The boxes and cats wouldn't be too hard, but I don't think many places have Jesses."

"I, um, no. They don't." Jesse can feel Andrew shrug against him. "But there's one where I am now, and I thought maybe he wouldn't notice if I just kept living with him, but, um, he did -- I don't know why I'm speaking about you in third person. You should probably say something before I just keep babbling on and on --"

Jesse presses closer into Andrew's side, gently patting the hand clamped around his wrist. "You're kind of hard to miss. Well, actually, you're especially easy to miss, but -- not in the 'overlook' sense of the word."

"Oh, so you noticed I wasn't trying very hard to find a flat?" Andrew asks, sounding like he's forgotten how to breathe.

"I -- I might have," Jesse admits, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

He jumps a bit in surprise when Andrew ducks his head, pressing his nose to Jesse's neck, lips moving against his skin. "Did you also happen to notice I'm sort of completely in love with you?"

"That," Jesse has to clear his throat to continue, "That, I missed."

"Well, I am," Andrew mumbles into his neck. "And that's -- that's why I'm a horrible person, because I'd stay here forever if you never told me to leave, and --"

"You're not," Jesse says sharply. Then, softer, "I happen to know of an apartment that has a few boxes and three cats and a -- and me. I've heard it has room for an Andrew."

"Really?" Andrew asks in a very small voice, tentative but hopeful.

"I mean, it'd have to be a pretty good Andrew, you know, but I think you'll do. I can lower my standards a little, since --" oh god, he can't blame this one on drunkenness and it's not going to sound like anything other than what it is "-- since I kind of love you, too."

"Oh. That's... that's good." Andrew lets out a shaky little breath.

All of a sudden, Andrew is no longer sitting next to him. He's swung one leg over to the other side of Jesse's lap to straddle him, half-sitting on Jesse's knees -- which isn't terribly comfortable, but that's not important enough to be more than a momentary bother. One hand is resting on Jesse's shoulder, the other is sliding up his neck to cup his jaw and tip his head back. "I'm going to kiss you now," Andrew announces rather unnecessarily.

Unable to help himself, Jesse's glance darts away from Andrew's huge brown eyes and he blurts, "The cats are watching."

Andrew leans back, putting a few more inches between them, looking to the side where Ophelia and Fyodor are sitting on the floor next to the bed, peering up at them. Andrew engages them in a staring contest for several long seconds before getting off the bed (and Jesse) to shoo them out of the room and close the door.

The sight of the closed door abruptly makes Jesse's palms start to sweat and he sucks his lower lip between his teeth apprehensively. Andrew, however, doesn't seem to give a damn about awkwardness because he plants his hands on either side of Jesse's hips and leans in, determined. The angle is off and Jesse's lip starting out between his teeth makes it weirder, but Andrew is kissing him and that's all that matters.

Jesse makes a noise somewhere between protest and whimper when Andrew pulls away, causing him to flush red with embarrassment, especially once he realizes he's clutching two fistfuls of Andrew's shirt.

"Um," says Andrew articulately, looking down at Jesse's hands.

"Er," returns Jesse, hastily letting go, though he has no idea what to do with his hands so they end up clenched together in his lap. But Andrew is grinning and crawling back onto the bed, straddling Jesse's legs again, fingers warm on Jesse's jaw as he draws him in for another kiss. This time Jesse's hands end up around Andrew's waist, one thumb drifting lower to brush against the sharp jut of his hipbone through his sweatpants. Andrew squeaks and jolts forward when that happens, his nose bumping into Jesse's cheek before he readjusts his position and licks a wet stripe across Jesse's lower lip and into his mouth.

After that, several things happen in quick succession: Andrew somehow coaxes Jesse out from under the comforter so his protective barrier is gone; Jesse enthusiastically helps Andrew pull his shirt off and accidentally-on-purpose throws it across the room; Andrew pins Jesse to the mattress, doing something wonderful with his lips and teeth to Jesse's neck; and Emma-cat starts yowling loudly on the other side of the closed bedroom door.

Andrew starts laughing helplessly into Jesse's shoulder before propping himself up on his elbows to look over at the source of the caterwauling. After being briefly distracted by Andrew's nipples, Jesse turns his head and can see that the kitten is shoving both her paws under the door as far as they can go while meowing at the top of her tiny, evil lungs.

"I should, um, feed them," Jesse tells Andrew, his expression somewhere between a grin and a grimace. "It will distract her for a while."

The second Jesse realizes he is hard and his boxers hide nothing is when Andrew rolls off of him to let him up to feed the cats. Intellectually, he knows that Andrew has most assuredly noticed that he's aroused, but that doesn't make crawling across the bed and going to the kitchen with a tent in his boxers any less embarrassing, even if his shirt does partially cover it.

Of course, feeding the cats gives him a few minutes away from Andrew's mouth and fingers and chest to think about the situation, which is a pretty effective erection killer. Jesse is frowning as he pulls the bedroom door closed behind him, though he's less sure if there will be anything happening that he doesn't want his voyeur cats to see.

"What happened between the kitchen and here to make you look like that?" Andrew demands, lower lip pushing out in a pathetic-looking pout.

Jesse taps two fingers against his temple, flopping backwards onto the bed. Andrew stares down at him, still pouting. "You can't just... you can't just move in here. The press..."

"Right," Andrew agrees easily, which throws Jesse into a well of confusion. Hadn't their conversation prior to the making out entailed Andrew living with him? "I'd ask you to stop thinking for a second, but I know that won't do any good," Andrew continues, leaning down to press a brief kiss to the corner of Jesse's mouth. "I may have gone over this situation -- hypothetically, mind you, no names were mentioned -- with my publicist, and, uh, Emma, but she already knows your name -- because I knew you'd worry."

Jesse raises an eyebrow and pushes himself up to kiss the part of Andrew that is closest, which happens to be his bicep. "Okay, go on." There is a warm glow settling into the pit of his stomach, pushing out the cold gnawing dread. The firm lines of Andrew's torso less than two feet away from him certainly don't hurt, either.

"This is all a rough estimate, mind you, and it is dependent on me not running my mouth and saying something inappropriate --"

"My faith in whatever this plan is has taken an abrupt and potentially fatal nosedive."

"Oh, shut up. It also depends on how busy we both are. I've got maybe a month or two to say I'm still looking for a flat, say I switched estate agents. Then I can either find a flat to buy and not live in, or I don't buy a flat and just say I do, but I can't move in for another two months for, I don't know, renovations -- so that's four months," Andrew says with a nod. His fingers are sneakily working their way up under Jesse's shirt, which is distracting. "If I make up a flat, I can say the deal fell through at the last minute and start over from square one or just say I give up and you're a wonderful person and are going to let me live with you since I like New York so much."

"Do you?" Jesse asks, rolling onto his side and propping his head up on his hand.

"Do I what?" Andrew parrots, mimicking Jesse's pose. Only shirtless. Shirtless is good. It says a lot about Jesse's current state of mind that he is mostly fixated on Andrew's half nudity instead of the potential for career-ruining scandals. Jesse wonders if it is normal to want to run his tongue in the delineation of Andrew's musculature. Probably, he decides, staring at the curve of Andrew's bicep. Really, Jesse sort of wants to lick every inch of Andrew. Most of him knows this is vaguely disgusting, another part points out he'd probably run out of saliva at some point, the rest of him just wants to _do it_.

"Like New York," he clarifies, dragging his eyes away from smooth muscle to meet Andrew's gaze.

"Yes," Andrew's arm snakes out and wraps around Jesse's waist, pulling him closer to press open mouthed kisses up his neck until he's gently biting Jesse's earlobe and whispering, "But I have a secret."

"Does it have to do with how your hair defies gravity?" Jesse inquires in what is supposed to be a teasing tone but comes out more breathless than anything. Andrew nibbling on his ear is doing things to his capacity for rational thought.

"Ugh, no," Andrew laughs and pulls away to kiss him on the mouth. "You're horrible. I was going to say that I would be happy living anywhere you were, but I don't think I will anymore."

"I don't know, you have some pretty specific living condition requirements, what with the boxes and the cats and -- me," Jesse trips over the last word, because he still can't quite believe any of this is happening, despite Andrew having sneakily wormed almost his whole arm under Jesse's shirt to rest against the bare skin of his back.

"Mm, I do," he acquiesces, using his arm to drag the hem of Jesse's shirt up much higher than it should ever be dragged.

"You -- you aren't seriously trying to get my shirt off, are you?"

"Maybe?" Andrew drags the first syllable out in an attempt at innocence. "I intend to touch as much of you as possible right now in case you change your mind and throw me out, so don't bother with whatever rubbish you're about to say. I assure you, I want your shirt off of you very, very much."

Jesse knows he is turning red, so he ducks his head so Andrew can't see his face, except he ends up with his burning cheek pressed right against Andrew's skin so it's probably pretty obvious. Andrew's arm tightens around his back and Jesse can feel the vibration of his voice against his chest when Andrew says, "I should ask if this is okay, but I'm having trouble thinking. Um, is this okay?"

Jesse bites back a laugh and closes his teeth around Andrew's collarbone instead, causing Andrew to jump and squeeze him even tighter. "Do you always talk this much?" Jesse asks, then licks the indentations he'd made.

"No, I think that's entirely your fault. I have to keep you talking to make sure you aren't panicking because if you start panicking then I'm going to and then everything will be awkward and that is the last thing that I want to happen. Now, shirt? Please? Pretty please?" Andrew pleads, nuzzling his face against Jesse's hair.

"Couldn't you have waited until it was, you know, nighttime so we could do this in the dark?" Jesse asks rhetorically, squirming away from Andrew and managing to pull the extremely rumpled covers up over himself. Once sufficiently concealed, he starts struggling out of his shirt.

"In my defense, I wasn't expecting this to go nearly so well. What... what are you doing?"

In lieu of answering, Jesse asks another question. "You weren't expecting this to go well, but you came up with plans with Emma and your publicist to try to stop me from worrying about the press?" Triumphantly he tosses his shirt onto the floor by the bed, keeping the sheets pulled up to his neck.

Andrew's eyes are glued to the little pile of cloth. "I'm an optimist at heart," he replies faintly, dragging his gaze back up to meet Jesse's. His tongue darts out to wet his lips and Jesse looks away. He peeks back at Andrew when he feels mattress shift and sees him stripping off his sweatpants to reveal -- Spider-Man boxers. Jesse shouldn't be focusing on the fact that Andrew is wearing fucking Spider-Man underwear when Andrew is visibly hard underneath them, but -- "Don't," Andrew warns, sliding under the covers, reaching out to pull Jesse closer.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Jesse says, squeezing his eyes shut so he doesn't have to look at Andrew looking at him. Andrew doesn't waste any time, his hands are running up and down Jesse's chest, skimming his hipbones, his ribs, pausing briefly at the waistband of his boxers before moving upwards again to delicately circle his nipples. Jesse bites his lip and cracks one eye open before tugging Andrew half on top of him so they're pressed together from mouths to knees.

Their boxers join the clothing on the floor soon after, and Andrew wastes no time slotting their hips together, making good on his desire to touch Jesse everywhere. Emboldened, Jesse runs his palms down Andrew's back to cup his ass, which is everything Jesse ever fantasized it would be. He takes pleasure in running his fingers over the flexing muscle as Andrew lines up their cocks and wraps his fingers around both of them while still supporting himself with one arm.

The touch is utterly electric; Jesse's head is thrown back, eyes closed, breath coming in eager pants. Andrew jerks them slowly for a minute and Jesse is dripping everywhere which is kind of embarrassing but knowing that it's smearing all over _Andrew_ short circuits something in his brain. He plants his foot on the bed and pushes his hips up into Andrew's grasp, unable to stop the groan that falls from his lips.

Andrew lets go and impatiently shoves the covers off the bed before lowering his head to press hurried, wet kisses down Jesse's chest, stopping to suck a bright red mark onto his hip before carefully licking a stripe up the underside of Jesse's cock, lapping up the beads of precome at the tip. Jesse forgets that he is supposed to be embarrassed about being so exposed and urgently threads his fingers through Andrew's hair, encouraging. He badly wants to look down, watch Andrew's lips and cheeks and eyelashes, but what captures his attention is the rest of Andrew's body curled on the bed -- Andrew is stroking himself while he swirls his tongue around the head of Jesse's cock.

Between watching that and the wet heat of Andrew's mouth, Jesse does not last very long. He's sure no one else would, either.

He's still shuddering from the force of his orgasm when Andrew pulls away, rolling onto his back and jerking himself in earnest, breathing labored. With a flexibility and fortitude Jesse had no idea he possessed, he turns himself around on the bed, pushing Andrew's hands away and sucking as much of his cock into his mouth as he can manage. He sucks lightly, flicking his tongue over the head, once, twice, and then Andrew is arching his back helplessly, clutching the sheets as he comes down Jesse's throat.

"Not that I'm complaining," Andrew says breathlessly a minute later, "but you didn't have to." His fingertips trace the shell of Jesse's ear as Jesse slowly rubs his cheek against Andrew's stomach.

"It's, um, less messy this way?" he offers with a smile that is supposed to be a smirk, but he's too happy to pull it off. Jesse is having a hard time feeling self-conscious about any of it when he is so very pleased with himself.

There's a wheezy sort of laugh from Andrew and he cups Jesse's cheek, running his thumb over the curve of his smile. "Of course. Because sex shouldn't ever be messy."

"No," Jesse disagrees, nipping the digit. "It can be, but not when I want to go back to sleep without having to wash the sheets."

With enormous effort he pushes away from Andrew and moves closer to the edge of the bed, stretching as far as he can to snag his shirt off the floor. He pulls it over his head despite Andrew's noise of protest and considers trying for his boxers, but they're all the way by the door and moving that much is not going to happen.

"This is a charming look," Andrew observes, running his hands up the outside of Jesse's bare thighs and over his ass to rub the small of his back under the shirt.

Jesse shivers and squirms away with a frown, then tries to pull the covers into some semblance of order. He fails miserably, especially since Andrew is making it as difficult as possible by refusing to budge. "Would you move?" he asks, exasperated, because he is _sleepy_ , damn it. Andrew grins at him but sits up, pulling some hidden corner of the comforter that somehow makes everything line up.

Satisfied, Jesse rolls onto his side and waits to see what Andrew will do. It's not that he's expecting Andrew to leave, exactly, even if there is a small voice in the back of his mind saying that this is somehow all a mistake, because someone as gorgeous and amazing as Andrew couldn't possibly be serious about _Jesse_. Except... not only is Andrew gorgeous and amazing, he is also almost as neurotic as Jesse, just a little better at hiding it.

Jesse flops over onto his back and looks at Andrew, who is still sitting there (naked) looking very unsure of himself. Jesse opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, but still has no idea what he should say. "So," he starts, then loses his train of thought once Andrew meets his eyes. "Are you going to move your stuff into my room?" he blurts out. "I don't know how this is supposed to work."

"If you want," Andrew says with a shy smile, finally stretching out to lay next to Jesse on the bed. His hand fumbles around until it finds Jesse's, and he twines their fingers together.

"Well, I sort of need that room back if I'm going to foster any new cats..." which is the truth, but also a good excuse.

"Oh, yes, for the good of the cats, of course," Andrew says, squeezing Jesse's hand.

There's something in the tone of his voice that makes Jesse turn to face Andrew, letting go to tuck his arm under himself and go for broke by curling up into his side, head on Andrew's shoulder, arm around his waist. "For my own good," he corrects.

"I can do that," Andrew says, sounding stronger. He presses a kiss to the top of Jesse's head, readjusting their positions so he can wrap an arm around Jesse's back. "Aren't you going to sleep?"

"Yeah," Jesse mumbles. "But I'm going to regret it because my contacts are still in."

If Andrew says anything else, Jesse can't hear it over the sound of his heartbeat, lulling him to sleep.

***

Predictably, the rest of Jesse's day is a steep downhill slope of awful. Not that he'd expected it to somehow get _better_ than orgasms and Andrew loving him, but the sheer dreadfulness is a clear sign that the universe hates him and wants him to treat his Zoloft prescription bottle like a Pez dispenser. (It's a shame, he's been doing so well on his current low dosage regime.)

He wakes up much later than he'd planned and has to get out of bed without even a minute to spare to revel in the fact that Andrew is laying there, still asleep, naked -- in his bed. Their bed?

Sleeping in his contacts had definitely been a bad idea. His glasses are still missing in action (thank you, cats), but there's no way he can keep wearing his contacts without ending up with bloodshot crack addict eyes, so he digs out his spare pair of glasses that are three years behind his worsening eyesight and starts getting a headache immediately.

Andrew continues to sleep through Jesse stubbing his toe on the toilet (the _toilet_ , really?) and spilling cat food everywhere when Emma-cat launches herself at the bag in mid-air. After he finally gets out the door, just barely on time, the pedal of his bike snaps off. Literally just snaps off, like he's Sven Nys.

So he's late for his tour of Juilliard which had been set up especially for him as part of his research for his role in _Predisposed_. Someone had suggested that he actually go through the application and audition process, but Jesse had firmly vetoed that idea, because for one the admissions office has real potential students to interview, and two Jesse doesn't want to know if he'd get rejected.

There is really nothing like arriving at one of the most prestigious schools for performing arts where people are _waiting on him_ half an hour late. The woman assigned to be his guide is visibly unimpressed. Jesse spends the whole afternoon with half-formed apologies in his head to every student that he passes. Sorry for being late, sorry for intruding, sorry for being less talented. Between that and his annoyed guide, the tour probably does more harm than good, since his character isn't supposed to be actively terrified of setting foot inside the school.

It starts to rain when he's standing outside Juilliard, debating the merits of taking a taxi home so he can hide from the world faster. He's soaked in under thirty seconds, so he starts walking. He's afraid to be the tiniest bit glad that he at least has a hat on for fear of it blowing off his head and getting run over by half a dozen cars because it is his favorite hat. As he walks, he goes through the list of people that he knows who studied at Juilliard and tries to pare it down to the few of them that will still speak to him despite his undeserved film career and Oscar nomination. It keeps him focused on something other than his wet feet in his wet socks in his wet shoes, at least.

Paul the doorman just stares at him as he shuffles past him into the building, dripping. He gets the same reaction from Andrew, who trails after him uncertainly as he drips his way through the apartment to the bathroom. He pauses at the door, touching his fingertips to the frame before looking back at the bedroom; seeing Andrew's suitcase pushed up against the dresser is almost enough to make him want to smile, but he's cold and stressed and morose, so he can't.

Andrew has paused in the bedroom doorway, looking at Jesse in concern. It's easy to see that he wants to say something, but Jesse shakes his head. He can't work up the energy to explain, so he closes the bathroom door and turns the shower on.

***

There's soup once he's dry. Jesse wonders if Andrew thinks soup solves problems, since this is at least the fifth time that Andrew has made him eat soup when Jesse's had a bad day or been in a terrible mood. He can tell that his silence is distressing Andrew, but the only thing Jesse really wants to do is curl up under a blanket on the couch and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist for a while.

So he does.

The kitten comes and lays on top of his feet where they're tucked up under the blanket next to him instead of trying to run off with his spare glasses that are sitting on the coffee table, which he counts as a small victory.

Andrew is sitting on the other side of the couch, a whole cushion of space between them. There's tension in every line of his body as he sits and taps halfheartedly on his laptop, sometimes his phone, sneaking glances when he thinks Jesse isn't looking. Fyodor is sitting on the arm of the couch next to Andrew, Phia is laying calmly on the table.

Eventually, words come back to him.

"I'll always have days like this," he confesses.

"I've known you for almost two years, Jess. I know." Andrew holds his hand out, palm up, over the empty cushion. Jesse reaches out to meet him without thinking about it. "It's okay. I know you can't always talk about what's bothering you. Will you come over here?" It's a genuine question, not a demand, just a request.

Jesse settles into Andrew's side, resting his head on his shoulder, and pulls the blanket over both of them. Jesse can feel some of the rigidity in Andrew's posture fade, and he wonders how much his inability to talk really bothers him.

"It -- was it -- does it have anything to do with this morning?" Andrew asks carefully, rubbing his hand over Jesse's upper arm.

"Only in the sense that this morning used up my yearly quota of good things happening to me," Jesse replies with feigned sourness.

Andrew is suddenly boneless against his side, the contrast making the tension he'd been carrying all the more apparent. Jesse can feel Andrew's stubble catching on his hair as he rubs his cheek against Jesse's head, mumbling something Jesse can't quite make out.

"What -- oh," Jesse realizes. "Oh, you thought that it was this morning that -- no. No, no, no. I had that Juilliard thing today, and I was late, and other things happened and it was just a bad day." Before Andrew can say anything, Jesse quickly adds, "Except for this morning."

Andrew smiles tentatively. "I was -- it was very self-centered to assume you were upset about that. It's just, you were gone when I woke up and I had myself half-convinced I'd imagined the whole thing but then I remembered you laughing at my Spider-Man boxers when I was trying to have sex with you and I didn't think I would make that up. "

"I didn't laugh," Jesse corrects, smiling back.

"You were laughing at them _in your mind_ , I know you were," Andrew replies with a laugh. He sounds normal, cheerful. "Carey gave them to me as a joke. They, um, make me feel manly and heroic?"

"As manly and heroic as a ten-year-old can feel, I assume."

"I did have Spider-Man pants when I was ten," Andrew says thoughtfully.

"I'm not surprised."

"And just so we're clear, in case I did imagine some things this morning, I love you. An embarrassing amount, really. I have for, um, a while."

Jesse blinks at the non sequitur and doesn't know what to say back. _You didn't imagine anything because I remember how it felt when you tried to touch all of me? Please never realize you could do so much better? I love you?_ That last one would probably be appropriate. Except his brain doesn't want to go with appropriate. "I checked out your ass when I was talking to Martin Sheen," he blurts out instead of any sort of heartfelt sentiment.

" _Jesse_!" Andrew exclaims in a way that could pass for shocked if he didn't burst into laughter a second later.

"It was Emma's fault," Jesse mutters, bumping Andrew's ribs with his elbow in a futile effort to get him to stop, except Andrew's laughing so hard he isn't even making noise anymore, doubled over, head on his knees. It alarms Ophelia so much she gets up and leaves.

"Emma," Andrew finally gasps out. "How could she have possibly caused that?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Jesse mumbles. "Though, while we're on the subject, why does Emma seem to know everything that goes on between us five minutes after it happens?"

"Er."

"Is that a sound that means 'I text her way too much'?" Jesse inquires, raising his eyebrows.

"She _made_ me tell her that I -- that I had feelings for you, and then she kept telling me to 'nut up or shut up' and she wouldn't stop but I had someone to talk to about you and yes, I text her a lot."

Jesse cringes but succeeds in getting out the words, "She knows that we did... things. Of a sexual nature. Doesn't she." It isn't a question.

There is a very long pause.

"She doesn't know any of the details?" Andrew offers hopefully. His extremely guilty expression is the last thing Jesse sees before he pulls the slack of the blanket over his head to hide his face, which could potentially catch on fire it is so red.

"If I were a violent person you would be very injured right now," Jesse informs Andrew when he ducks under the blanket as well. "You're lucky I'm only thinking of ways to off myself before I ever have to talk to Emma again."

"Jesse," Andrew whines, "that's not funny. I didn't _mean_ to tell her, but like I said I was panicking a bit and I called her and maybe I was arguing out loud with myself about the Spider-Man boxers thing --"

"Oh, god, stop talking," Jesse moans, covering his face with his hands because the blanket isn't enough anymore. He's vaguely aware that Andrew is chanting an apology and possibly trying to worm his way into Jesse's lap, pushing the blanket to the floor. Jesse allows it because he doesn't have the will to stop him and then Andrew is pulling his hands away and kissing his palms, his wrists, his chin, his nose, still apologizing between one kiss to the next.

"I understand that you're sorry," Jesse gets out between the kisses now centered on his mouth. "You can stop saying it." Without the repetitive apology there is only the kissing, all lips and tongues and roaming hands.

They make it to the bedroom and get the door shut without tripping over any cats.

Afterward, sleepy and sated, Jesse confesses, "You're making it kind of hard to call this a bad day."

And Andrew replies, "Good."

***

**Epilogue**

Jesse is tired. He tells Andrew as much as he drags himself up the stairs, bag in one hand, phone in the other. Jesse is also tired of taking the stairs, but four months ago the elevator had done this weird shuddering stop thing and Jesse hadn't set foot in it since. He'd also made Andrew promise to not go near the potential deathtrap and for the sake of his own sanity he lets himself believe that Andrew always takes the stairs, even when Jesse isn't there to remind him.

"You'll be home in a couple days though, yeah?" Andrew is saying as Jesse makes it up the last step. "I miss you. The cats miss you. Emma-cat especially, I think, she's started flopping over in the middle of the hall like she's given up on life. Sometimes I join her. It's thoroughly depressing."

"Yes, I'll be home soon," Jesse assures him, only half-listening when Andrew starts telling him about a charity Carey is raising money for.

As fulfilling as it's been being working in Rome with Woody Allen, Jesse has never wanted to be home more in his life. He dreads seeing how much the kitten has grown in his absence, hopes that Andrew really will be as happy to see him as he claims.

Jesse knocks. Andrew sounds annoyed when he says, "Hang on, there's someone here."

It takes a little while for Andrew to answer the door, cradling Emma-cat to his chest since she is still convinced there is something awesome in the hallway that they aren't letting her see.

"Oh," Andrew breathes, blinking at Jesse, then looking down at his phone. Jesse holds his up, hitting the button to end the call with a little wave. "Hi," Andrew says, his whole face brightening with a huge smile. He puts his phone away.

"Hi," Jesse replies. "Can I come in?"

"I suppose, since you live here and all," Andrew says, still grinning widely as he steps back to give Jesse enough room to get in the door with his suitcase. Andrew doesn't let him get any farther before he's dropping the kitten and Jesse's bag on the floor and pressing him bodily against the wall.

Even before Andrew cups his jaw, Jesse is tilting his head up, leaning forward, bringing their lips together for the first time in way too damn long.

"I missed you, too," Jesse tells him between kisses.

"I'm glad you're home," Andrew says quietly in Jesse's ear.

Home. The apartment has been Jesse's home for a lot longer than it has been Andrew's, but something about hearing Andrew say the word makes it feel so different, so special, like it's somewhere they belong together, where he belongs. It _is_ somewhere he belongs, with Andrew and their three cats.

"Me, too," Jesse replies, smiling into the next kiss.

end


End file.
